Can't Let You Steal My Heart
by thisisforyou
Summary: COMPLETE! Sherlock Holmes has been beaten by precisely four people in his extensive career. John Watson is NOT about to become number five. S/J, rating for ch.14 only. Everything's nice and cheerful and fluffy until it isn't.
1. Silver Blaze

In his defence, he was so tired that first day that most of it didn't even register. In fact, he's pretty sure it first happened the day before that one, and he hadn't noticed over the slight buzzing noise in his ears and the distinct feeling that Sherlock's latest taxidermy experiment had gone wrong and the detective had accidentally stuffed _his_ head with cotton wool.

You see, Sherlock has had extensive self-training and eons of practise at not sleeping. John, not so much. So the still-dapper-and-enthusiastic consultant is pacing like a man possessed in the sitting room of 221B when he first notices it.

"…So my first instinct was entirely with the police on that one, but then how could he possibly have hidden it? Nobody knew him around there, it's impossible to keep an entire racehorse hidden in suburbia when your neighbours are all rubbernecking you…"

John sits on his armchair by the fire and watches, feeling his eyelids strain downwards. He just needs fifteen minutes of sleep and he'll be good to go. But of course, every time he's just about to drift off Sherlock starts up again.

"…but why didn't the _dogs_ notice? The stable-boys sleep right upstairs, the dogs can't have barked at all or they'd have woken up. And what's more – John, are you still with me?"

John grunts in assent. Sherlock nods. "Good. Because I think I'm onto something here. Straker's knife was covered in blood, but the man the police took in had no wounds of any kind on him, and that walking-stick thing wasn't sharp enough to cause the cut on Straker's leg. So how did the cut get there?"

He looks at John like he's waiting for the answer, so the army doctor coughs, sits up straighter, collects the last facts the detective laid in front of him, lines them up like a buffet-train, and fits them into the conclusion that Sherlock probably reached hours ago. "He could've done it himself after he got his head bashed in. Convulsions caused by the brain injury."

Sherlock practically beams. "Exactly. Which pretty much takes away the last piece of evidence in favour of the accused. So, Straker's wife tells him about the disturbance, he grabs the knife from the kitchen table and runs out to the stable –" Sherlock's deep voice cuts off suddenly and his eyes widen. "John, you saw that knife, right?" John grunts again; Sherlock had nearly severed his nose off with it when he waved it in his face. "What kind of knife would you say it was?"

"It was a cataract knife," he replies immediately, realising the point as he says it. "Which wouldn't have just been lying on the kitchen table," he finishes, nodding. Sherlock's nodding too, looking positively gleeful.

"So…" he prompts eagerly.

"So Straker took the horse out of the stable to sabotage it in the middle of the paddock where no-one would hear it. But then who killed him?"

But Sherlock's already on the move, whirling around in search of his phone, thrown aside in disgust earlier. "The horse did," he says distractedly. "Remember the match outside the stable? Straker lit it behind him so he could see the right spot to make the cut, and the horse panicked and kicked him." With a crow of delight, he dives onto the sofa and digs his phone out from where it had fallen between the cushions and rushes out. John watches the magnificent body disappear into the bedroom, still blinking and trying to sort through the cotton wool to find what just happened.

Somewhere amid the clouds his brain remembers the adjective it just used to describe Sherlock's arse.

Wait, _what?_

However, by this stage he's too exhausted to think about much other than the fact that Sherlock has just solved the case and that means he'll be free to sleep after another hour or so of gloating, so it sticks a metaphorical Post-it next to the thought and flags it for later.

Of course, the consulting detective drags him along to the Yard with him so that he can berate the new young Sergeant he's taken a shine to for his lack of imagination and smile smugly in Lestrade's face when he gets the call from Dartmoor to say the horse has been found exactly where Sherlock said it would be. The DI gives John a world-weary look that turns quickly into a worried one. "Are you all right, John?" he asks gently as Sherlock waltzes off.

John's ears are making that buzzing noise again, so he doesn't quite catch it. "Hmm?"

"When was the last time you slept?" Lestrade asks. John blinks a couple of times.

"Um. I don't remember. I'm okay, he'll be done gloating soon." As he says it, Sherlock finishes his high-functioning analysis of why Anderson's new glasses make him look like he's just been hit in the face with a cow pat and turns back to John.

"I think that about covers everything," he says briskly. "Shall we go, then?"

John frowns. "You haven't insulted Donovan yet," he reminds him. "You've praised Gregory, crushed Anderson and gloated at Lestrade, but you haven't insulted Donovan. That's usually your parting blow."

The aforementioned sergeant turns the corner – evidently she's been purposefully avoiding the scene _because_ of the ritual. Sherlock notices her with eyes full of glee. "Ah, Donovan. As always, you've missed everything of importance."

And with that done, he grins at the doctor, his grey eyes dancing, looking utterly mischievous and utterly kissable.

That's when John collapses.

It's probably that the realisation of what he'd just said – only in his mind, thank goodness – added one last frantic thought loop that blew the fuse on his brain. But whatever it was, the added stress of having collapsed and being manhandled by Sherlock and Lestrade into a cab drives the original thought right out of his head, to be filed next to the earlier Freudian slip he's forgotten about.

Except that night, he dreams about Sherlock.

It's a nice dream. Usually the only ones he remembers are set in Afghanistan and he only remembers them because he gets shot and the phantom pains wake him up. But when he wakes up the next afternoon feeling fully refreshed and ready for anything, he suddenly remembers a scene that he's pretty sure – _pretty _sure – didn't happen when they got home last night.

_Sherlock shuts the door behind them, still with that delicious smile in his eyes. "Well, that was easy," he comments, stripping scarf and coat and dumping them unceremoniously on the arm of the sofa. "I'm starving. Should have thought of that when we were by the Chinese place."_

_John shrugs. "There's stuff from yesterday in the fridge. I'll heat some up." He opens the fridge and peers inside, but there isn't time to observe the contents before the consulting detective's body is pressed flush against his back, long arms snaking around his waist, a largish, strong nose tickling the join between neck and shoulder. "Sherlock?"_

"_Mmn?"_

"_What are you doing?" _

"_An experiment."_

_John isn't sure why these words make him relax – he's only dreaming after all, sometimes things just happen – but they do. "Oh." He leans back into the detective's arms. "Okay." Sherlock lets a deep, contented noise rumble its way out of his chest and resonate with John's body until his knees are rendered useless and his whole body vibrates with longing._

And when he wakes up he sort of knows. The way everyone sort of knows, really. John sits up and lets his short legs dangle off the side of the bed and remembers the dream, and his body shivers and tingles at the thought of it, and he realises that yes, right, okay, he'd really rather like to get his positively _gorgeous_ flatmate into his bed and keep him there for an indefinite period of time.

And not being one to shy away from a challenge, that's all fine, really. Because he'll get there, eventually. It's all a matter of bringing the detective around to the same opinion.

So right there and just like that, John Watson decides to seduce Sherlock Holmes.


	2. Charles Augustus Milverton

It's not something you really plan for, is it? Falling in love with your – decidedly male, one might add – flatmate? It's not exactly high on the average Englishman's list of life goals, right after 'get a degree and a career' or 'almost get shot in Afghanistan'.

Did we establish already that John's not your average Englishman? Because falling in love with Sherlock Holmes, while perhaps never exactly on his to-do list, is quite possibly his proudest achievement. Not that it was difficult, really, but in the two days since he realised he'd managed it, it has provided him with no end of entertainment.

There's always something to be said for admitting to oneself that you're attracted to someone; John has suddenly allowed himself to sit in the armchair by the fire and really _watch_ the consulting detective at work on some chemical experiment or other, watch the periwinkle expanse of shirt stretch to show every muscle in his corded back, feel his heart trip and race at the sliver of pale neck visible between stiff collar and luscious dark curls. He lets himself walk past the bathroom – quite by accident, of course – at the precise moment Sherlock is set to emerge, pink and glowing and still buttoning his shirt from the morning shower, an extra triangle of alabaster skin visible below his collar, his curls damp and settling around his face.

Whatever he does, whatever state of disorganisation John catches him in, the detective is always perfect. It ought to be illegal for one person to be so beautiful.

Right now he's out, and he's been out for days, coming back late at night dressed up like an extraordinarily good-looking tradesman, out looking for some criminal he's taken exception to, a blackmailer of the worst kind. John knows he shouldn't be up waiting for him because he won't come back until after midnight, but he does anyway. He won't be able to sleep without catching a glance of Sherlock, sprawled on the sofa with his arms and legs flung out at angles like a pale starfish.

He devotes his time instead to thinking, to devising plan after plan of how one might go about seducing a consulting detective until he hits upon one likely to work. John's style of thinking is different to Sherlock's; it's slow and ruminative, more sort of plodding and methodical, the tortoise rather than the hare. And while slow and steady doesn't always win this race, John always gets there in the end.

What he _really_ wants is for Sherlock to look at him the way he looks at – well, no, not the way he looks at a _corpse_ exactly, that could be interpreted badly, but with that sort of feverish excitement in his eyes that is only there when he's looking at an especially succulent mystery for the unravelling, that sort of single-minded devotion where John is the only thing in the world worth his time and the rest of the world can go and teach its grandmother to suck eggs. He wants Sherlock to be able to sit down at the kitchen table and just maybe _look_ at him for a bit, wants to be able to see the affection and, yes, maybe even the desire, leak out of his eyes and his pale lips and the very pores of his skin, wants him to look up and maybe say –

"John."

The only downside to John's particular brand of very deep thinking is that it requires the _utmost_ concentration, and the outside world tends to get ignored a little. John looks up to find that the object of his attentions is in fact standing right in front of him positively _radiating _nervous energy and looking more than a little irritated at being ignored. "Sherlock. Sorry. I was thinking."

"Really?" Sherlock quirks in mock-incredulity, one corner of his perfect mouth twitching upwards. John gives him his best glare, and the smirk intensifies.

"Yes, _really_. Other people do it too, sometimes," he testifies. Sherlock looks as though he is about to contest the point, then desists. "Tea, then?"

"Please." Sherlock casts himself onto the sofa like his puppeteer has just given up in disgust. "Is there anything to eat? I have to go out again in an hour or so."

John looks at the kitchen clock in surprise; it's eleven-thirty. "Really?" Where could he possibly be going at this time of night? He takes a cup of tea and a plate of left-over something-or-other out to the detective, who is lying on the sofa as though he has lost all strength in his deceptively-supple body. John takes that to mean that progress is being made. Sherlock has a constitution unlike anything he has ever seen before; he operates all in fits and bursts like so many pages of Morse code, all blinding energy and whirling winds when his mind is occupied but so much _nothing_ after the case is finished that it's actually alarming. He sits up, though, to receive the doctor's gifts without thanks.

"Really. Sit down, John, I have what I believe people term 'big news'."

John, surprised, sits down. Sherlock rubs his palms together and leans forward, the spark of excitement re-kindling in his grey eyes like rain on a Sunday. "John. When we first met, you remember I told you that romance wasn't really my area?" John's breath catches. Is this it? The moment he's been re-imagining every way possible for the last – God, has it only been forty-eight hours? Sherlock clears his throat importantly. "Well. I'm engaged."

John can say without a shadow of a doubt that this is the last thing he was expecting. He can't quite help himself stuttering like Molly under pressure and opening and closing his mouth a few times like a demented Koi-carp, fighting the sensation of falling that one gets at the end of a bad dream, wondering when he'll wake up from this one. "What?" After a few seconds of his flatmate watching him in evident amusement, his brain kicks back online with the gasp of the drowning and he belatedly remembers his manners. "I mean, um… congratulations, Sherlock."

The detective chuckles, the low, amused chuckle that John loves, only today it's not for him but some woman, somewhere. Maybe it's judgemental and disgusting but John had never really considered that Sherlock might _not_ be gay. "Yes," he says in amusement. "It's moving a bit fast, perhaps, but _when you're in love, why wait_?" He says the last sentiment with a wry quirk to his upper lip and a slightly derisive tone, like he's quoting something he saw in a crap American Meg Ryan rom-com.

That's when John smells a figurative rat. He's sure there's a literal one decomposing in cough syrup somewhere too, but that one doesn't smell yet so he's let it go. Now, on the sofa next to his flatmate, he narrows his eyes and adopts a suspicious tone. "To _whom_, Sherlock?"

Sherlock smirks. "To Milverton's cleaner."

Ah. Milverton, John remembers, is the criminal Sherlock's been chasing after; a blackmailer of the worst kind who pays money for incriminating or personal documents relating to celebrities and threatens to sell them to the media if the corresponding figure doesn't cough up their entire inheritance. In the past few days, Sherlock has been hunting down the criminal – and the love-letters he's managed to filch from Kate Middleton – with such a fervour John has begun to wonder what part of _his_ life was ruined by such practises.

John sighs and fixes his friend with a stern look. "Sherlock." Into the name he tries to convey all the disgust and firm reprimands that he shouldn't _have_ to express at the way Sherlock uses the people who are attracted to him. The consulting detective raises an innocuous eyebrow as though daring the good doctor to tell him off. "Why?"

"Well, Aggie's told me absolutely everything there is to know about the layout of Milverton's house." Sherlock puts down the plate that used to contain some sort of cold pasta and delicately wipes the edges of his mouth with his hand. "I'm going to burgle it tonight."

John sighs again, but this time the emotion is acceptance. All right. Nothing and no-none's feelings will ever come between Sherlock and a case. Fine, good. He knew that already. "And what are you going to do about _Aggie_ when you've finished the case?"

Sherlock shrugs happily. "Oh, I have a rival who's eager to step into my place with her," he dismisses. John suppresses a giggle at the thought of Sherlock's most prominent rival.

"Tell me it isn't Mycroft."

Sherlock chuckles, too. "Really, John. Can you imagine Mycroft marrying the Cockney cleaning-woman of a cutthroat blackmailer?" The flood-gates John so carefully erected to stop the giggles collapse and the two men giggle a bit. Then John sobers up.

"I don't suppose there's any point in trying to convince you that burglary is illegal and if Lestrade catches you he will _gleefully_ press charges?" Sherlock just raises a delicate eyebrow. "I thought not." John looks ruefully at the clock again. "All right. When are we leaving?"

Sherlock frowns. "_You_ are not coming."

Some little BAMF part of John puts its foot down and screams _oh-no-you-didn't. _"Then _you_ are not going." Sherlock blinks. John has sat back for most of this case and let Sherlock deal with it, but now there's serious danger and illegality and other adrenaline-fuelled solutions that make John's heart thump painfully and are impossible to resist. John needs to share these moments with Sherlock, needs them like he needs tea to function in the morning. Those snatched breaths after wild chases, mad giggles after near misses with mad axemen, stray looks in dangerous situations, those are the things John knows the consulting detective doesn't share with anyone else.

"John," Sherlock attempts. "This isn't like breaking into Joe Harrison's flat or Soo-Lin Yao's. There is a definite chance I might end up in prison for this one."

John smiles grimly. "Then at least you'll have company."

Sherlock blinks again, a slow flicker of the black fan of eyelashes over the misty-grey orbs. Something flashes over his face, a glimpse of some rare emotional struggle. Then he laughs and claps John on the arm. "Perhaps it's for the best," he says, smiling in pure, childish delight.

That smile lingers in John's mind as Sherlock dashes off to change out of the blue plumber's overalls he'd been wearing. It's quite possibly the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, that tiny sparkle of something genuine. He just managed to surprise the detective, and he knows that he would do almost anything to get a reaction like that again. Sherlock reacts to puzzles, to surprises. He likes the unknown. So John's going to give it to him.

That's when he decides he's going to seduce Sherlock not by _competing _with his beloved twists and tangles, but by becoming one.


	3. Burglary

"It's dark."

Well, of course it's bloody dark. It's one o'clock in the morning, and John lopes in an attempt at a tipsy swagger down Oxford Street, clutching at Sherlock when someone who wasn't 100% sober might need support and pretending that he isn't really enjoying leaning on his flatmate as they both put on elaborate performances of being mildly inebriated. Sherlock ought to _know_ it's one o'clock in the morning, too, because he insisted that they pretend to be drunk so as to 'blend in' with the other people out there at this time of night. He'd mumbled something about hiding in plain sight before making a slightly exaggerated show of tripping over something, collapsing into John, and giggling stupidly.

After that, John had stopped complaining. "Yes. It's daaark," he agrees in a sing-song voice.

Sherlock trips again, yanking on John's shirt-collar. John tells himself yet again that he _volunteered_ for this abuse. "No light," he repeats, in a forlornly disappointed voice, like this was the last thing he was expecting. "Dark, no light."

John wonders if he's quoting _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ on purpose, and if he is, whether he realises the irony of this. John's always imagined that _he_ was the Arthur Dent of either of them, and that if he were going to trust anyone to be his Ford Prefect, it would be Sherlock. He doesn't voice any of this, settling for another giggle instead.

Sherlock watches the people crossing the road to avoid them in dismay. "John – John, where are they going?" John watches them.

"Home, maybe," John replies absently. "Or back to the pub. We should go back to the pub. Why did we have to _leeeave?_ I was having fun, I didn't want to go home yet, it's only one –"

Whatever rambling excuse his brain was making up without him, it gave up when Sherlock stopped abruptly, yanking on John's coat again, throwing his arms up wildly and yelling loud enough to wake the dead, let alone the sleeping criminal whose attention they are trying so hard to avoid. "_Here it is_! Hooooome!"

John shushes Sherlock through another giggle as they stumble their way up the path. There are no lights on in the house, which is comforting; Sherlock's _fiancée _had informed them that Milverton goes to bed without fail at ten-thirty every night and is out like a light. How she knew this, John hadn't bothered to ask.

Sherlock crouches by the door, hidden from the street by the pillar of the porch with climbing roses crawling languidly up its length, and pulls out his lock-picking kit. "You know, John," he says quietly, his voice back to its baritone rumble, the higher-pitched drunken squeals of thirty seconds ago completely forgotten. "People have always told me I would have made a fantastic criminal."

"You _are_ a criminal," John retorts. "This isn't the first flat I've helped you break into."

The consulting detective flashes a positively disarming grin at his flatmate, then lets out an 'ah!' of triumph as the lock clicks and the door swings open. There is, Sherlock mentions languidly as they creep through the corridor, a door that leads right _into_ the study, but before John has time to ask why the hell they didn't use that door then, he explains that it is kept locked and bolted at all times. John tries to scowl, but whatever degree of success he reaches with this is unclear in the dark, and before he has time to assess it himself it's wiped clean off his face by Sherlock grabbing his hand _– grabbing his hand_ – and dragging him down the hallway.

Well, bloody hell. John wonders if Sherlock can feel his pulse cantering away like a rogue racehorse under his fingers as they tiptoe down the passageway and into what might possibly be a room. He can't quite tell because his eyes haven't adjusted to the dark yet, and Sherlock's hand is like an anchor, burning his skin where they are touching, the only thing he can be sure of.

Sherlock seems to know perfectly well where he's going, though. He doesn't dare to flick on the lights, but he twitches open the curtain in the room ever-so-slightly, letting just enough light in that John's eyes start to adjust.

They're in the study, a largish square room with a desk in the middle, facing the window, but John's eyes are drawn to the huge safe that squats behind it like a child about to pounce. In there, he thinks to himself, are the deepest and dirtiest secrets of Kate Middleton's love life.

Strangely, the thought doesn't interest him for any reason other than that it's what they're here for and as soon as they have it, they can leave. He looks at Sherlock, who is frowning at a portiere to one side of the safe. The detective looks back at him and mouths, _bedroom._

Oh. He looks around for the door Sherlock had told him would be there; it's to his left, on the opposite side of the desk. He creeps forward to inspect the lock and bolt in case they have to make a quick exit, and draws in a sharp – and far too loud – intake of breath.

Instantly Sherlock is by his side, staring at the door and frowning. The bolt is drawn back, unlocked. Sherlock reaches out a hand and pushes the handle; John feels the sharp blast of London wind as the door swings open. His first reaction is frustration at the knowledge that the door was neither locked nor bolted and they _could_ have just come in from here, but of course his second reaction is what must have been Sherlock's first reaction: confusion. _Why_ was the door left open?

He gestures first towards the door, then towards the safe, hoping his meaning is clear. _You take care of the safe. I'll play guard dog, like usual. _Sherlock nods and pulls out the little leather bag of lock-picking tools that had been given to him by 'Santa' at a Scotland Yard Christmas party. They're ninety-nine per cent sure it was Lestrade, and John makes a mental note to thank him sometime. He would have known exactly how much use it would get.

Ten minutes of hesitant tinkering later Sherlock's _ah!_ of delight precedes the soft _ping_ of the safe. John shares the triumphant grin with him.

The safe is full of so many papers and manila files and photographs he can't help but gasp. It looks like it should be a source of wonder for archaeologists and historians, a vault of information such as this. But John, of all people, recognises the need to keep secrets. Sherlock begins to flick his long fingers over files and notebooks, scanning for a hint of the royal family. John, in turn, begins to flick his eyes over the frown of concentration on that beautiful face, the tiny furrow between his light eyebrows.

As such, John misses the noise that makes Sherlock's incredible body tense and his head snap up. Suddenly and seemingly without warning, Sherlock places both hands on John's back and pushes him towards the curtain. John's brain stutters and stops for a moment, so that the next thing he is aware of is being behind a heavy, musty curtain with Sherlock pressed against every inch of his side.

Something inside him spontaneously combusts. He draws in a sharp breath before he passes out, but Sherlock elbows him in the side. "_Shh!"_ he hisses, grabbing John's wrist again and gripping it so tightly it feels like an ice-cold pair of handcuffs holding him still. He daren't even breathe.

When the skinny, oily little man John recognises from an earlier meeting to be Milverton throws the door open and wanders fitfully into the room, scowling and muttering to himself, his heart stops as well and he wonders disconnectedly what would happen to Sherlock if he dropped dead back here.

Milverton clicks on the light and John can't help but flinch at the sudden influx of light. Sherlock clutches reflexively at his hand and gives it a reassuring little shake that serves to do nothing for John's nerves.

He is _so_ aware that there is only a thin and moth-bitten curtain parting him from the man that Sherlock reacted to worse than Moriarty, and even _more_ aware that there is _nothing_ parting him from Sherlock. Nothing except his jumper and Sherlock's dress shirt.

His heart is busy registering its interest at this fact when he reaches up slowly to make a gap in the curtains big enough for him to see through. He sees Milverton's bald spot as the man sits at the desk and bends over some papers. Then he sees the safe door behind him.

It's ajar. Sherlock must not have closed it properly when he heard Milverton's footsteps; John casts him a fearful look before staring intently out the gap in the curtain again. If he turns back to look, maybe just to check one of the papers – tomorrow's the day he's supposed to be ruining Prince William's marriage – he'll notice it and he'll know they're there and –

_Ohhh, God._

The cold, strong point of Sherlock's nose grazes John's neck as the detective stretches to see through the gap John made in the curtains. He knows Sherlock _must_ be able to feel the heat rising off his skin, the gallop of his heartbeat, the steady heaving of his chest as he breathes too heavily. His entire world narrows to the feeling of this cold point of Sherlock's skin, so unassuming and _intimate_, gently moving up and down his neck. If he closes his eyes, he can ignore the musty smell of the curtain and pretend that the wall behind him is his bedroom wall, and Sherlock is _his_.

There's a click, and a creak, and the far door – the one that isn't locked and bolted – swings gently open; Milverton's head snaps around and John snaps back to reality. His knees weaken for a moment as Sherlock's nose pushes harder against his neck, the detective desperate to see what's happening in the room beyond.

Milverton gets up and now John, too, is straining to see the newcomer. "About bloody time," the criminal growls, his voice deep and rough. "You're almost half an hour late."

John realises that this means if the newcomer had been on time, he and Sherlock would likely have walked right into the middle of it. He sends a quick prayer to the God he suddenly believes in to thank Him for –

_Ohh, holy crap._

Sherlock evidently can't see enough from his position with just his nose pressing against John, so he tilts his face up until his open lips are pressing against hot skin and his warm breath is playing havoc with John's nervous system. John retracts his sudden belief in a generous higher being. This is just unfair.

He makes a mental promise to stop procrastinating. Tomorrow – well, as soon as they get out of whatever's happening here and have a little bit of sleep to freshen things up a bit – he's going to seduce Sherlock. On the double.

He's a bit surprised when Milverton brings his new friend back to the desk and a woman's figure blocks the criminal's face from view. He'd sort of assumed this was some sort of thug's business transaction, but it looks as if it's a transaction of the more vile and intimate kind.

"You'd bloody better have something of worth, _darling_, to have made me stay up this late."

The woman sits down, and John can see that she's wearing a large-brimmed hat and dark glasses so that Milverton – and by extension, John and Sherlock through the curtain – can't see her face well enough to identify her. John's heart pushes an extra dose of adrenaline through him just in case, while Sherlock, whose thoughts are obviously running along the same lines, quickens the puffs of his breath against John's neck.

"Come _on_, baby doll. You said you had photographs proving that Rupert Grint and Julie Walters are having an affair?"

John can't help his eyebrows from sky-rocketing at that. He's a Harry Potter nut, born and bred, and the image of Ron and Molly Weasley together is slightly disconcerting. But Milverton is speaking again, and John shakes his head slightly to rid it of the image, which has the additional result of spreading Sherlock's influence across his neck.

"I'm telling you, love, these pictures had better be _good_. I didn't stay up all night to see some – oh, Holy God – is it really you?"

John can see enough to know that the woman has taken off her hat and glasses, but not enough to see her face. He strains a little bit to see, but it doesn't work; as he leans back in, he bumps against Sherlock hard enough that the detective involuntarily presses a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to John's neck. The yelp of shock and arousal catches itself only an inch before escaping his lips; it'd be unfortunate if, at this stage in the game, he gave it all away like _that_.

"Yes, it's me," the woman says, and her clear, Yorkshire lilt rings bells in John's mind for reasons he can't quite place. "You sound surprised. Has no-one whose life you ruined ever come back for revenge?"

Milverton coughs awkwardly, his face and voice panicked. He's not very brave, John notes with some satisfaction. "R-revenge?" He clears his throat, attempts to put on some semblance of bravery and control. "It was hardly my fault – thirty thousand pounds was well within your pocket. It was your own stubbornness when you refused to pay. We've all got to make a living, _love_."

The woman stands up aggressively. "My husband _died_ because of the shock you caused him, you bottom-feeding little guttersnipe. Don't you _dare_ try to tell me it was _my fault._"

Milverton matches the movement. "And don't _you_ dare try and bully me! One shout, and I'll have the police over here, _celebrity _or no."

Suddenly there's a revolver involved, pressing against the soft part under Milverton's chin. John can't stop the sharp intake of breath as Milverton is forced to take a step back, but both he and his assailant are too occupied to notice it. The blackmailer's sweating profusely now. "H-hang on, love. No need for violence. C-can't we just work this-"

His words are cut off by another sharp twist of the revolver. "Shut up," the woman hisses. "You don't get to talk now, you filthy bastard. You ruined my life, but you won't ruin anyone else's. Not anymore."

John almost cries out as a gunshot breaks the air, and Sherlock jumps enough to remove all contact between them. Then another shot sounds, and another, and John recognises the uncontrollable shots of someone unused to wielding a weapon, hell-bent on revenge and on the verge of a mental breakdown. He wants to go and comfort the mysterious woman, but he thinks that somehow a man with a Browning jumping out from behind the curtain isn't going to calm her down at this point, so he stays where he is.

Finally, the revolver empties itself out and the noise settles out into a woman's fast, heavy breathing. Then the door slams shut, and then nothing.

After a moment Sherlock bursts into action like someone pressing 'play' on a television in the middle of a chase scene. "Hurry, John!" he cries, leaping out from behind the curtain. "Someone will have heard that." He begins to pull handfuls of papers and files from the safe and throw them on the fire in the grate. John just blinks, taking deep breaths, trying to combat the feeling that his trousers suddenly don't fit as well as he remembered.

"Why – just leave that, Sherlock, let's go, for God's sake," he says when he's regained enough composure. Sherlock huffs in frustration.

"We can't, John! When the police get here, they'll search the contents of the safe and they'll find Ms Middleton's letters. We don't have time to search through them. We just have to burn them all – help me, John!"

So John does, dragging handful after handful of papers from the safe to the fire, listening with growing frustration and desperation to the sounds of police sirens, steadily rising in the distance. They sound as if they're right outside by the time the safe is empty and Sherlock stands, pensively watching the last of the photographs become swallowed by the flames. "Come _on, _Sherlock!" he hisses, pulling at the detective's arm. Sherlock doesn't move. It's as if there are memories of his own burning in the grate, and he can't decide whether he wants to dive in and save them or let them burn.

A door slams in the house and John panics. "_Sherlock!" _ The sound of his voice, an octave higher than usual, snaps the detective out of his reverie and he darts for the door. John follows, but he's not quite fast enough; his slight flinch as he steps over Milverton's body, riddled with bullet holes like a Swiss cheese, puts him in plain sight as a policeman throws open the door and rushes in. For a moment, the doctor and the policeman stare at each other, both completely in shock. Then John recovers his senses and runs out of the door after Sherlock and into the night.

The two of them run and run, the only sounds in their ears each other's breathing and the fading sounds of pursuit as the officers fall far enough behind to give up. Finally, Sherlock bends over against a wall in an alleyway, breathing heavily. John leans against the opposite wall so that he can watch Sherlock, out of breath and unusually vulnerable, while he tries to calm his own heaving breaths.

After a moment, Sherlock looks up. "Well, that was unexpected," he states calmly.

To say that this is an understatement would be understating it a little, so John just chuckles grimly. "Sherlock. We are _never_ doing anything like that again."

"Really?" Sherlock challenges, his eyes dancing. John meets his gaze evenly. _Really, you stupid arrogant wonderful git._ Then he shrugs. "Fair enough. I'd love to see the police report in the morning, though."

John glares at him for a bit before giving in to the urge to giggle. "Your _face_, though, Sherlock. When you first heard him coming."

Sherlock chuckles in response. "I won't even mention _you_ when that police officer came in." John laughs, picturing how he must have looked, frozen while facing certain doom. He hopes the officer didn't get enough of a look at him to build any kind of profile. Sherlock casts an arm lazily over John's shoulders, and he suddenly stops worrying about it. "Come on, then, Doctor Watson," the detective drawls, his voice still breathy. "Let's get back to Baker Street."


	4. Interlude: Lazy Sunday

John wakes up at mid-morning feeling unusually optimistic after a reasonable amount of sleep. He wonders for a moment why Sherlock hasn't woken him up yet, but he can't remember the last time the detective slept and the case ended last night, so it follows that he'll be asleep for most of today, and catatonic for the better part of the week.

At least, that's what Sherlock thinks. John has other ideas.

Sherlock commented once about John's jumpers, and although he tried to stoically ignore the snide remarks, when he came home to find the detective burning various strengths of acid on his favourite jumper, he took the hint and has largely stopped wearing them.

Well, bugger that. Today John cheerfully dons his most obnoxious fairisle jumper and bounces down the stairs two at a time, humming _Let's Spend the Night Together,_ the picture of domestic bliss.

It's in this mindset that he takes the tray of eggs on toast and the mug of English Breakfast in hand and kicks open the door to the consulting detective's bedroom. His lack of experience relating to this area of the house leads him to knock over a trivet with the swing of the door and spill something viscous and smoking all over the carpet.

"Good morning – oh, bollocks. What was that?"

At the crash, the figure on the bed – on it, John notes, not in it, limbs flung to the cardinal points as though he were asleep already and simply fell there – jumps and scrambles up to the headboard, breathing heavily. "John?" Sherlock's voice is thick with sleep and John's nerves falter. He probably needs his sleep; maybe he should just force-feed him a bit of toast and then leave him.

"Sorry," he jokes anyway. "Wrong room."

Sherlock's body relaxes; he stretches languidly, pyjamas riding up his legs as his rump slides gracefully down the sheets. "I'll bet," he yawns wryly. John's hands shake and he decides he needs to put down the tray of breakfast before he drops it. He takes a deep breath.

"Here," he says briskly. "I made breakfast – don't look at me like that, Sherlock, you need to eat." He dumps the tray on Sherlock's legs. "You're going to eat your toast and drink your tea, then you're having a shower and getting dressed. Then we're going out."

Sherlock looks from the egg on toast to John and back. "Out," he repeats incredulously.

John tries his best innocent smile. "Yes."

The consulting detective pokes gingerly at the egg with his fork. "Out where? Why?"

John decides to test his luck by settling down on the bed beside him. Sherlock doesn't react. "Just out, wherever. It's Sunday morning."

"Yes," Sherlock drawls scathingly. "And was Sunday morning last week, and it'll be Sunday morning next week, and every week until we're dead, and even then it –"

"No, Sherlock, stop with your existential crap." Sherlock shuts up pretty quickly. "We're going for a walk. Because it's nice, and we're young, and we're _together_, and we deserve to let things happen to us. We're going to go out and have fun."

Sherlock stares at him for a moment. John holds his breath, waiting to be snorted at and rejected. Eventually, though, a tiny smile tugs the corners of those pale cupid's-bow lips up and Sherlock shovels a forkful of egg into his mouth. "Okay," he mumbles around the food. Another mouthful follows it. "Thanks."

John grins and settles himself back against the headboard, plucking his own cup of tea from the tray. A sense of elation seeps gently through him; it appears Sherlock is in a good enough mood to indulge his plans for today. He wasn't being evasive in his earlier assessment; he really doesn't know where they'll go or what they'll do, but he knows he wants to spend the day being John and Sherlock, flatmates and best friends, rather than Sherlock Holmes and the Doctor Watson that helplessly tags along behind him.

"Sherlock?" he says conversationally as the toast on the plates dwindles. The aforementioned 'mm's quietly, his mouth busy. John casts his eyes back to the trivet by the door. "What was in that beaker I knocked over?"

Sherlock waves an innocuous hand. "Oh, just an experiment. It doesn't matter, I solved the case without it."

John snorts. "I meant more in terms of whether it's about to eat through the floor and surprise Mrs Hudson."

Sherlock frowns at it. "No, it shouldn't." He pauses. "Shouldn't." He looks back at his plate. "It might be interesting to see if it does, actually."

John holds back the smile. "What _is_ it, Sherlock?"

The detective shrugs, taking another mouthful of tea before answering. "Rhubarb leaves."

"Uh-huh." John nods and gets up. "Well, it might not get all the way downstairs, but it'll sure try. I'll clean it up."

He launches himself off the bed, chuckling to himself at Sherlock's undignified little squeak as the mattress bounces. "Don't touch it, though, John," the detective instructs idly. "It'll burn your skin."

John looks back at him. "Duh."

He comes back from tossing the last of the towels and the latex gloves in the trash just in time to see Sherlock stride out of the bathroom, vigorously towelling his curls, his flawless pale chest bare. John's breath suddenly decides it could be better used elsewhere and leaves his lungs in a huff. Sherlock is the very picture of pulchritude, and John is temporarily overwhelmed with gratitude that the detective is comfortable enough to let him see him like this.

"John," Sherlock drawls eventually. "You're staring."

John blinks himself back to reality. "You're so pale you kind of draw the eye," he admits as casually as he can. "You're like that reflective stuff on high-vis gear. Next time I jog at night I'll just take you with me, shirtless." His heart stops at the vision. Sherlock smirks.

"Well, pardon my genes," he replies, dropping the towel on the floor and retreating back into his bedroom. He re-emerges moments later buttoning up a deep, rich red shirt, the exact shade John associates with cherries and satin and seduction. He wonders crazily for a moment whether Sherlock chose the colour knowing _exactly_ the effect it would have on him and his plans for the day, but that's not possible. John is trying to be as sporadic as possible, and even though he knows Sherlock will figure out what he's trying to do eventually because he's Sherlock and that's what he does, he also knows the detective hasn't quite come to terms with it yet.

Sherlock pulls on the usual impeccable suit-jacket, but leaves the coat and scarf behind. "Shall we go, then?" he says innocently. John grins.

Outside it's beautifully sunny and John regrets the fit of pique that led him to wear one of his thickest jumpers. Sherlock looks around with a tiny smile on his face. "Where to now, Doctor?"

John grins again. "Wherever you like."

So Sherlock sets off past Speedy's and John, revelling in the normality of the arrangement, follows. They walk in a comfortable silence for so long that it takes a moment before he registers that Sherlock has spoken. "Sorry?"

"I said, you haven't called Sarah in a while." John just looks at him; his relationship with Sarah had ended months ago. "Not Sarah, sorry. The other one. Hannah. Rebecca. No – Janette."

John shouldn't chuckle at this considering how angry he'd been at the time, but he does. "Well, considering the last time we saw each other she told me she never wanted to talk to me again, I don't think I'll be calling anytime soon."

Sherlock makes an 'ah' motion with his mouth. "My fault?"

John shrugs. "Indirectly."

The detective nods again. "Sorry," he says after a pause. John shrugs again. "And I'm sorry I can never remember their names. There have just been too many of them."

The doctor nods slowly. He hadn't wanted to discuss his steadily marching line of girlfriends, but he supposes that now he may as well run with it. "There _were_ too many," he agrees. "But there won't be any more. I'm giving up." He smiles brightly to show Sherlock he doesn't mind. "I guess I'm stuck with you for the rest of my life."

He tries not to look for Sherlock's reaction to this statement so as to appear nonchalant, but even so he registers that the detective is staring at him. Then Sherlock smiles.

"What a shame," he remarks idly.

John pulls off his jumper as they step back into the sunlight. He's aware that the jumper pulls his shirt up with it and exposes his midriff for a moment. He looks at Sherlock when he surfaces, and his grey eyes are fixed on someone's window-box on the terrace. John wonders if he's imagining the faint pink tinge in the detective's razor-sharp cheekbones.

"Hey, it's Sunday," John says finally, looking at his watch.

A slight smile quirks Sherlock's mouth into the diagonal. "Yes," he agrees, with the mock-air of one dealing with an insistent toddler.

John rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "That means there's the Sunday market at Regent's," he explains.

Sherlock lifts his eyes skyward. "Oh, joy."

The Sunday market, when they get there, turns out to better resemble a holiday fun-fair. Along with the usual vegetable stalls and people flogging home-made crafts, John spots a bouncy castle and a candyfloss machine, which he naturally drags the detective over to in a buzz of excitement. Sherlock tuts in irritation at his childish behaviour, but John can see the tiny uplift of amusement at the corners of his mouth.

The two men bite cheerfully at the pink fluffiness as they wander through the rows of stalls. John stocks up on vegetables; Sherlock gets distracted by a pair of handmade wooden earrings shaped into intricate honeybees. John, after a moment's argument, buys them for Mrs Hudson, along with a pair of ladybug-shaped ones for Sherlock to give to Molly by way of apology.

Then Sherlock spots the rifle range. "Oh, John, look!" he cries, suddenly sounding like an excited child. The doctor chuckles at the speed with which the detective has made the switch from condescending to carried away, but when he sees what it is that's got him so worked up his face falls.

"Oh, no, Sherlock – please…" John isn't bothered by his memories of Afghanistan the way so many other ex-soldiers are; he has Sherlock to keep the excess adrenaline and intermittent tremors at bay. But that doesn't mean that a souped-up air rifle and a backdrop of desert and tin cans is an easy sight for him. Sherlock turns around and instantly registers his discomfort.

"Sorry, John. Can I have a go?"

John starts forward, then registers that he's limping and stops to collect himself. It's a goddamn rifle range at a funfair, that's all. He keeps walking, without the limp. "What, are you asking me for your pocket money?" he teases. "Of course you can have a go."

Sherlock actually crows in delight and John has to stop himself from rubbing his hands together gleefully. This is going better than he could have hoped.

Next minute, Sherlock is cocking the air-rifle and he's wondering if there is actually _anywhere_ he could possibly stand right now where he'd be safe. Eventually he decides that right where he is, beside and slightly behind him, is probably his best bet.

An elbow in the eye later and he's thinking that maybe, in fact, the _other_ side would have been ever-so-slightly smarter had he allowed himself to compensate for the kick that modified air-rifles invariably produce when fired.

Yeah. In John's defence, he had other things on his mind.

Sherlock puts the rifle down and shakes out his shoulder. "Sorry, John," he says thoughtfully. John registers relief that the detective seems to be treating the situation with the maturity holding a firearm requires and is staring at it intently. "I'm not sure I…"

John makes a split-second decision that Afghanistan can stay on the other side of the world. "Here," he says firmly, taking the weapon out of Sherlock's long fingers, careful to let his own brush them. "You have to widen your stance a bit to brace yourself for the kick, and then relax your shoulder so you can roll it back when you fire. Like this." And just like that, when he thinks about Sherlock, cocking, aiming and firing the rifle comes without hesitation. A tin can at the back of the range _pings_ and topples.

Sherlock is smiling as he takes the rifle back and tries to mimic the army doctor's posture. He doesn't quite get it right, so John takes a deep breath and nudges his legs apart, melding his chest to the detective's back and guiding him. Sherlock glances back at him in surprise at the contact, but adjusts his footing without comment.

"Now, aim," John instructs, clearing his throat and stepping back. Sherlock adorably closes one eye to concentrate. "And when you're ready, fire."

The pellet misses the tin can by half an inch; undeterred, Sherlock reloads, adjusts his position again, and aims. At the second shot, the can admits defeat, clattering to the ground. Sherlock smiles smugly.

The range attendant, a rough sort of man missing his two front teeth, is unimpressed. "Yer got one shot left," he growls.

Sherlock holds out the rifle. "You take it, John."

John takes it, and wipes out a third can cleanly. Sherlock makes a good show of whistling in admiration. "Good shot, lieutenant."

John raises an eyebrow. "You weren't so bad yourself, _rookie_."

The range attendant gives them both looks of deep mistrust and quickly removes the rifle from their reach. "Three cans," he grunts mechanically. "That gets yer one of these here prizes."

John casts an eye over the range of soft toys and grins. "Go on, then," he tells Sherlock. The detective looks at him with wide, amused eyes.

"But you got two of them," he protests. John rolls his eyes.

"Then consider it my gift to you," he placates. Sherlock's mouth twists into a half-smile.

"That one." The range attendant hooks the stuffed animal off the shelf and hands it over; it's a floppy St Bernard, the red medical cross stark on its collar. John knows Sherlock's probably trying to make a joke, but he feels touched anyway. "Thank you, John," the detective says as they walk away.

The doctor grins. "I was just trying to prepare you for the next time you get cornered by a psychopath at a fun-fair," he deflects. Sherlock laughs, and John joins in. He can't help but notice the way he's holding the St Bernard, tucked in close to his body.

"For a moment it all came back to you, didn't it?" Sherlock says, looking at him with something he'd identify as concern if Sherlock ever felt concerned. "The war? And then you just shut it off. How'd you do it?"

John looks at him as blankly as he can manage. "War? What war?" he says determinedly. "The only war I care about is the one between you and London's criminal community."

Sherlock stares at him. The slight, contented smile left over from their shared laughter grows until it dominates his angular face. "John Watson," he says quietly. "You are… an enigma."

John just beams.

* * *

><p>"Well, thank you for that," Sherlock sighs when they step back inside, shedding his jacket and stretching. "Surprisingly enjoyable."<p>

John chuckles in a manner evoking thoughts of _I told you so_. "Tea, then?" he asks, tossing his jumper at the stairs. Sherlock places the St Bernard on the mantelpiece beside the skull.

"Mmn, sounds lovely."

The army doctor sits down pointedly. "I'll have one as well, then, thanks," he says innocently. "And a biscuit."

Sherlock looks at him in surprise. Sherlock _never_ makes tea, and John _never _complains about it. For a moment the detective is thrown. Then he smiles wryly. "Digestives?"

"Please."

As the kettle boils, there's a knock on the door and Detective Inspector Lestrade bounds up the stairs. John's heart sinks, but he doesn't let it show. "John," Lestrade greets, nodding. John grins.

"Hello, Inspector. Sherlock's just making tea, would you like one?"

Lestrade blinks. "He's what?"

"I'm housetraining him," John says conspiratorially. On cue, Sherlock sweeps out of the kitchen with a mug in one hand.

"Ah, Detective Inspector," he says politely. "How do you take your tea?"

The aforementioned DI looks from Sherlock to John, both of whom give him their brightest smiles. Lestrade gets the creeping feeling they're both holding knives behind their backs. "Uh, just black, thanks," he stutters confusedly. Sherlock nods sharply and ventures back into the kitchen, the picture of domesticity.

John's a little surprised at the level of compliance Sherlock is displaying with his games, but he supposes that if the effect is Lestrade's confusion – which it seems to be – then it's not completely abnormal.

"So, Inspector," Sherlock says brightly, placing a mug of black tea in front of him and settling on the settee beside John. Closer than normal, he notes with a few smug butterflies. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Lestrade sniffs the tea suspiciously. "Well," he says, after deeming the beverage safe. "If you're not too busy –"

"Oh, I'm never too busy for you, Lestrade," Sherlock interrupts.

John coughs. "Okay, you're overdoing it now," he says quietly, patting Sherlock's knee. Lestrade stares at them for a while. "Sorry, Inspector, do continue."

"Um. I wondered if you'd come look at a crime scene in Hampstead."

"Hampstead," Sherlock repeats slowly, looking at John. Milverton's house had been there; John thinks he can see where this is going. "That's a long way away, this had better be good."

"There was a murder, I know you like those. The victim, a man named Milverton, we've been watching him for a while. A bit of a villain, between you and me – a blackmailer. He had a safe full of papers, you know, letters and photographs and stuff, and the murderers burned them all. They didn't take anything – we think the criminals might just have been looking for social justice, you know."

John does, in fact, know, but he says nothing. "Criminals?" Sherlock remunerates, his hands tucked in thought pose under his chin. "Plural?"

"Yeah, there were two of them," Lestrade says easily. "They weren't very careful, their footprints are everywhere. Shouldn't be too hard for you. One of our junior officers nearly caught the second man – he says he was short and stocky, light-haired, dark clothing."

Sherlock scoffs. "Your men really don't notice anything, do they? He _nearly caught him_, and that's the best description he's got? I mean, that could be a description of _John!"_

The aforementioned almost chokes on his tea. He looks at Sherlock, who is frowning at the Detective Inspector with a look of such innocent contempt that he fights back a laugh.

Lestrade looks from one to the other, a slightly amused look crawling over his face. "Yes," he says slowly. "Yes, it could be."

Sherlock leans back across the settee comfortably. For a moment John thinks he's about to get the detective's dress socks on his lap, but he isn't that lucky. "Well, if it's as easy as you make out, Lestrade, I'm sure you can handle it on your own. I've dealt with Milverton before, and nothing I found in our exchanges makes me want to bring his killers to justice. I think sometimes you just have to trust that a lifetime of bad deeds has come back to bite the victim."

John fights to keep a straight face as Lestrade sighs resignedly. "Well, if you're certain…"

Sherlock nods. "Dead certain. Good luck, Inspector."

The moment they hear the door click shut after him, both John and Sherlock collapse on each other in helpless peals of laughter.


	5. Boscombe Valley

When John recovers his breath, he slaps Sherlock lightly on the arm. "You _arse_," he wheezes. "He _knows_ it was us. Could you have been any _less_ subtle? _That could be a description of John_…"

Sherlock folds himself upright, still giggling like a schoolgirl. "Oh, relax, John, he won't do anything. And that's the best way to allay suspicion – it's so _overt_ it's _covert_, if you get my meaning."

John processes the terms _overt_ and _covert_ and shrugs. "Whatever. And what was with you acting all domestic?"

That elicits another low giggle from the detective. "He didn't know what to make of that, did he?" John has to admit that the DI's reaction was funny and gives in to the giggles himself for a moment. Then he remembers the thought that popped into his head when he looked at Lestrade's face.

"Well, if he didn't believe the rumours that we're shagging before, he will now."

Sherlock wipes tears of mirth away from his eyes. John is quietly thrilled at the reaction – genuine _tears_ of laughter from the emotionless angel is more than he'd ever hoped for. The lanky detective shrugs, tucking his feet up underneath him and picking up his teacup. "Well, you started it. And so what? Let them talk."

A week ago, John would have been rather angry at this cavalier approach. Now, though, he's having trouble keeping his bum on his seat at the thought that Sherlock _wants_ people to think they're a couple. "Mmn. It's not as if either of us needs the impression that we're single out there, is it?" Sherlock's grey eyes study his face for traces of sarcasm, find none, and radiate warmth for a bit. John wonders if maybe this little cozy silence is the right moment to just _tell_ him already. If he were opposed to the idea, surely he would have said something by now. "Sherlock, I –"

Cinematically, the doorbell rings. Once upon a time, he hadn't believed that such timing was naturally possible, but with Sherlock things seem to happen with perfectly _staged, _couldn't-script-it-better precision. And besides, Mycroft has the flat under surveillance. The elder Holmes probably realised John was about to make a fool out of himself and judiciously decided to intervene.

Too early, you fool. Wait for some kind of reciprocation.

Sherlock is looking at John expectantly and he's about to get up and get the door when he remembers that he's housetraining his detective. "Well? It'll be for you, go get it."

The curly-haired violinist rolls his eyes. "It's open, come on up!" he yells downstairs instead. John chuckles at his laziness.

The smile is wiped right off his face and out of the room as Mycroft himself saunters easily up the stairs.

Speak of the Devil, and He shall appear. Sherlock visibly holds back the groan. "Sherlock," the government official greets calmly. "John."

Sherlock ignores him, picking up his violin again. John bites out a soft 'Mycroft' in reply and tries to convince himself he's imagining the knowing smirk on the elder Holmes' face. He grits his teeth, preparing himself for the slaughtering of the elm-wood instrument that invariably chases Mycroft out the door. When, after a few moments, neither brother makes any noise at all, John sighs and breaks the silence. "Did you come here for a reason, or do you just like our company?"

He's punished for his sarcasm by one of Mycroft's tight, sardonic, patronising smile. John wonders sometimes how many years of his life he spent perfecting that look. "I merely came to question your involvement in last night's Hampshire murder."

"We didn't do it," John replies firmly. "Goodbye."

Sherlock smirks. Mycroft narrows his eyes. "And yet my surveillance places you at the scene of the crime within the appropriate time-frame. I do not believe that either of you killed Charles Milverton; however, I would like to know why you were at the house of someone so unsavoury at such a time."

John raises an eyebrow. "Would you? That's a bit nosey." He keeps his tone carefully cordial, enjoying the way the vein in the elder Holmes' temple jumps and stutters, the only indication he gives that he is starting to lose his temper. Sherlock stops running resin over his bow, his smirk broadening into a grin.

Mycroft takes a step forward, tapping his umbrella and looming in a threatening sort of way. John leans back to avoid being too close to his face, keeping his blithely oblivious expression in place. "Whoa," he says calmly. "That was very impressive. You could almost hear the villainous music playing in the background."

For a moment, John actually _can_ hear villainous music playing in the background. He briefly questions his own sanity, but then Mycroft gives Sherlock a positively murderous glance, and the first few bars of the Imperial March cut off with a deep baritone chuckle. "Would you two grow up? We are talking about your involvement in a murder case, for God's sake!"

John laughs. "I think _you_ were talking about it, actually. I don't remember having much constructive input in the conversation." Sherlock's chuckle starts up again. "I think you should just say what you have to say and then leave before you do something you'll regret."

He smiles placidly. Mycroft takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I merely wanted to assess the level of your involvement in the situation," he says with an attitude of intense self-control. "I see Detective Inspector Lestrade has already been through. I'm sure the two of you appreciate the severity of the consequences should Scotland Yard get the wrong end of the proverbial stick."

This time it's Sherlock who speaks. "Oh, please. Lestrade wouldn't convict us. He said it himself, the Yard had their eyes on Milverton anyway. They're happy he's gone. And I'm sure they're not the only ones."

Mycroft gives him a long, piercing look. "Indeed," he says finally. He taps the umbrella again. "The Duchess of Cambridge sends her thanks."

John redoubles his effort on the placid smile. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out," he advises cheerfully. "Lovely to see you, as always."

When Mycroft is gone, Sherlock turns to John, frowning. "You usually make an effort to be civil with Mycroft," he says accusingly.

John remembers their first meeting. And their second. And the third. "No, I don't. Well, only when he makes an effort to be civil with me." Sherlock shrugs and picks up the violin again. "And you! Since when do you play _Star Wars_ on the violin?"

The consulting detective smirks and rattles off a quick scale. "It wasn't difficult to learn. I had wanted to surprise you on your birthday or something, but the moment seemed quite opportune."

"You…" John stops for a moment to process this. "You learned the Imperial March for my birthday?" Sherlock shrugs. "That's… that's really sweet, Sherlock."

"Isn't that what friends do?" He gives the bow a flick and fiddles out the first bar of Puccini's _Prelude_. John smiles.

"Yeah," he says after a moment. "Yeah, that's what friends do. Tea, is it?"

* * *

><p>By eight o'clock the next morning, John finds himself on the outskirts of London, in a café, trying not to look enormously possessive as a buxom young woman throws herself on his flatmate.<p>

"Oh, Mr Holmes! Do you really think James is innocent?"

Sherlock looks up from his chair at the blonde girl's face and fakes a kind smile. "I'm sure of it, Miss Turner." He looks like he's about to say more, but the woman jumps in delight and throws her arms around him, and suddenly his bewildered mouth is full of blonde hair. John stands up, his fists clenching. Luckily Sherlock casts a _help me _look over her shoulder at him, and he is justified in not-so-gently removing the woman.

When she leaves, Lestrade sighs and downs the rest of his coffee – evidently not the first of the day. It's been a long night for the detective. "That was cruel, Sherlock," he says roughly. "To give her hope like that. The evidence against McCarthy is absolute, there's no way it wasn't him."

Sherlock gives him the usual condescending look. "Not absolute, Lestrade. I told Miss Turner the truth, it wasn't McCarthy. Come on, it looks like rain."

Despite the huge amount of faith that John holds in Sherlock's opinion, he has to agree that the evidence against James McCarthy in this case is extremely conclusive. If it goes to trial, the man doesn't have a chance; eyewitnesses _saw_ him arguing with the victim in such a heated state that blows were exchanged.

He and Lestrade hang back when they arrive at the scene; Sherlock bends double, pulls out his pocket magnifier and runs off like a bloodhound on a scent. John watches him fondly.

"You do like him, don't you," the DI remarks casually. John pulls himself out of his reverie to look at the older man's face, only mildly surprised. He learned months ago that Detective Inspector Lestrade is a lot more observant than Sherlock gives him credit for.

"Yes," he says simply. Lestrade nods.

"I can't blame you, I suppose." The two of them watch as Sherlock runs around the same tree three times, looking more and more crazed by the minute, obviously on the brink of some major discovery. John chuckles. "Does he feel the same?"

The doctor frowns slightly. _Does_ Sherlock feel the same? Well, he certainly doesn't feel the opposite, and that's good enough for now. "I don't know," he admits.

Sherlock gives a shout, and they cut their conversation short and trail over to where he's standing, bent over the mud with his magnifier trained on the ground. "Lestrade," he drawls smugly. "Could you be so kind as to tell me what this is?" John almost tells him he sounds like Mycroft, but decides that this would be unspeakably cruel.

The DI rolls his eyes at John and bends over Sherlock's shoulder. "It's ash. Tobacco ash. See? I told you – McCarthy smokes."

Sherlock fixes him with a glare that would make even the most stoic criminal wonder what they'd done wrong. John supresses a smile. "Yes, well done, Inspector. It's tobacco ash. McCarthy smokes _cigarettes, _Holiday cigarettes, to be precise. This ash is from a cigar." He raises it to his nose and sniffs delicately. "An Indian cigar. The kind they roll in Rotterdam. Expensive. Who do we know who smokes expensive Indian cigars?" The question is patronising, as if posed to a child.

Lestrade straightens up. "John Turner." Sherlock smiles brightly, standing up himself. "Why would _Turner_ have been here? Unless…"

"Oh, take your time. That cry, the greeting cry McCarthy says his father called even though he didn't know he was there? It's Australian. Turner spent time with McCarthy senior in the mines in Australia."

The DI blinks a few times. "It was _Turner_?" Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"Obviously. There was probably a fair bit of dishonesty going on in Australia, maybe McCarthy saw something he shouldn't have. Someone break the news to his daughter, she'll be delighted, and I'm not going near that woman again with a twenty-foot barge-pole. Come on, John, we're done here."

But John, chuckling at the memory of the over-enthusiastic Alice Turner, waits a little longer with Lestrade, who shakes his head in defeat and gestures to Donovan. "Did he just solve a case by identifying different kinds of tobacco ash?" he asks, grimacing. Lestrade chuckles.

"Looks like."

John groans. "Oh, he's going to be _insufferable._"

"Yeah, but you like it." They follow behind his billowing coat, Lestrade calling instructions out to Donovan, who watches with her usual disgusted expression. John lets loose a wistful sigh. "What are you going to do about it?" The DI prods finally.

The former captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers smiles devilishly. "Do you believe in me, Greg?"

Lestrade grins. "Of course."

John lifts his eyes back to the consulting detective in front of them. "I _will_ steal his heart, whether he likes it or not. Just give me time."

John doesn't notice that Sherlock's head is cocked to listen to their conversation, but Lestrade does; as he chuckles out a response, he can just see those cupid's-bow lips turned up in a defiant smile.

_Is that a challenge, Doctor Watson? _They seem to say. _Very well. I accept._


	6. The Man With the Twisted Lip

"Go on, then."

Sherlock looks up innocently from where he is sitting, the Stradivarius cradled in his lap, light from the window catching the ends of his curls and lighting them up like a halo. "I'm sorry?"

John grins at him. He knows Sherlock has been itching to say it all morning, and really he supposes he has it coming. "You can say it."

For a moment the consulting detective looks as though he's about to continue in the vein of 'say what?', but then he grins, a flash of good humour peeking through like a gap of blue among the clouds. "I _told_ you the differentiation between different types of tobacco ash was important," he gloats finally. John picks up the paper and smiles idly.

"I never said it wasn't important," he replies. "I only said it was boring."

Sherlock's smug smile drops; he huffs standoffishly and picks up his bow. "It solved the case," he mutters, before breaking out into a scratchy rendition of somebody's _Promenade_. John chuckles to himself.

"Maybe, but that wasn't the argument. I still win."

"It wasn't an argument," Sherlock snaps. John catches his eye, still chuckling. For a moment, the detective holds his scowl. Then he snorts in amusement. "But if it was, you wouldn't have been wrong," he admits grudgingly. "You should put this one in your blog."

John blinks. "Are you _endorsing_ my blog?" he asks incredulously. "Can you say that again, and I'll get it on camera?" Sherlock rolls his eyes, but he's still smiling. The violin lets loose a sudden, joyful crescendo and then falls silent again.

"Is there anything in the paper?" he asks hopefully.

John considers it. "There was a murder in Brighton," he comments. "A woman found dead – eurgh. Strung up against a wall at a meat-packer's. Sounds like quite an exhibition. Everything was red – she'd been dressed in red clothes and there was paint everywhere. Interesting enough for you?" Sherlock makes a so-so gesture, looking profoundly uninterested. "Oh, look," he says, not extending the paper in Sherlock's direction. "They haven't had any luck catching Milverton's killers."

"Really?" Sherlock says sarcastically. "That surprises me. _Nothing_ else?"

"It's going to rain until Friday." John is affixed with a murderous stare. "Game of Scrabble? Five Hundred? Charades?" The light, fast caper from the violin transforms in one long, aching stroke into something slow and melancholy that tugs at John's heart. He's never quite grasped how Sherlock's impromptus can elicit such a strong reaction out of him, but they always manage to be hauntingly emotional and stirring and _Sherlock_. "Cup of tea?" he suggests finally. Sherlock lowers the violin.

"Mm." The musician heaves a gargantuan sigh. John finds himself smiling fondly at the noise as he turns his back, his mind trundling along a homely little train-track of domestic activities that normal flatmates might enjoy and flicking them all away like bowling-skittles.

"We could go for a walk."

"In the rain?"

John shrugs as he flicks on the kettle. "We could go to Tesco. That might be fun." He can't deliver the line without smiling, and it's probably lucky he can't see Sherlock's face.

"John." He busies himself with mugs and teabags as he realises Sherlock has followed him into the kitchen and is now leaning against the doorframe. "If you _ever_ use the words 'Tesco' and 'fun' in the same sentence again, I will garrotte you."

He turns around indignantly. "Yeah? Where are you going to get a garrotte from?" he asks. Sherlock smirks.

"There's one in the bedroom." John flushes slightly. He's noticed Sherlock doing that before: _the_ bedroom. Not _my_ bedroom. He wonders if the detective is just ignorant of the fact that the word choice implies that they share the bedroom. Sherlock lifts an eyebrow, noticing his blush. "It's a bit warm in here, isn't it?" he comments idly, even though it isn't. "Shall we open a window?"

The kettle starts to whistle, and John gladly takes the excuse to turn his back. He's slightly unnerved by the comment – it could easily have been innocent. Sherlock's body temperature seems to be naturally lower than his own: he never feels the cold, but always complains of the heat, like some sort of snowman who'll melt in the sun. It's perfectly ordinary for the comfortable temperature of the room to be slightly too warm for Sherlock. So why does he suddenly feel like the detective is playing with him like a cat with an injured sparrow?

He opens the fridge to find that Sherlock has rearranged it again to make way for a tray of dismembered fingers, all adorned with rings of varying sizes. He stands in front of it for a moment, scanning the shelves for the bottle of milk he bought yesterday.

Sherlock's fingers brush against his stomach as the detective reaches around him; in an instant, John is aware that a sharp hipbone is also gently touching the side of his belt and that if he moved his face an inch to the right his cheek would bump against his flatmate's. Sherlock seems to inspect the contents of the fridge for a moment before snaking his fingers out and snatching the last slice of Mrs Hudson's boysenberry cheesecake. John retrieves the milk and turns indignantly to watch the detective retreat to the kitchen table with the plate. "Oi."

Long, pale fingers pause with the cake-fork buried in berry compote. Sherlock looks up innocently. "I hope you planned on sharing that," John tells him, his best silky-smooth threatening Captain voice in place. The consulting detective looks down at his fork, back up at John, and starts wolfing down the cheesecake as fast as he can.

In a time that should probably win some sort of record, John grabs his own fork out of the drawer and joins in, batting Sherlock's fork out of the way to get to the lone boysenberry on top. Sherlock squeals – yes, _squeals_, John tries to think of other words in vain – and employs his viciously sharp elbows in an attempt to hoard the cake for himself; within a series of blinks the situation escalates like a snowball rolling down a hill until both men are on the floor, berry compote smeared over their faces and arms, giggling madly and still attempting to incapacitate the other. A small part of John's brain not focussed on Sherlock's long, agile fingers digging into his sides decides that this is what heaven will feel like when one day he gets there.

"Ooh! Sorry, boys!"

John abruptly climbs off Sherlock and turns to face Mrs Hudson, the giggles fading in his chest. The landlady has flushed the colour of the blood on the bottom of the tray with the fingers in, but she's beaming. _Oh,_ John thinks. _Hmm. Oops._

"Mrs Hudson?" Sherlock questions calmly, sitting up and straightening his shirt. The woman flushes and stutters a bit.

"Yes – well – I didn't realise you boys were… busy… there's a woman downstairs to see you, Sherlock, another one of your little puzzles. I'll tell her to come back later."

Sherlock uses the table to pull himself up, presenting John momentarily with a disarming view of the seat of his trousers. John realises after it's too late that he probably shouldn't have been staring. "No, it's all right," he says, clearing his magnificent throat and readjusting his clothing. "Send her up."

Mrs Hudson scampers down the stairs again. John clambers to his feet and catches his best friend's eye; both men succumb to a snort of laughter. Sherlock turns to greet his client, but John chuckles and spins him back around. "Look," he says gently, calculatedly reaching a hand up to the detective's cheek. "You've got cheesecake all over your face." He brushes his thumb through a streak of boysenberry at the corner of Sherlock's mouth and for a moment considers that they're close enough to kiss.

Sherlock smirks languidly. "Is that all of it, Doctor, or is a run to the bathroom necessary?" he asks. John glances down at the purple smear on his thumb before supressing a smirk, bringing it up to his own lips, and sucking the sauce away. The detective's green-grey eyes widen slightly, the pupils expanding like the drawing-in of breath. He looks away hurriedly.

"No, that's it," he says cheerfully. "I'll get the tea, shall I?"

When he returns, slightly giddy with his own success, Sherlock has tucked his feet up underneath him and tented his fingers in front of his lips, staring at the newcomer intently. The woman perched uncomfortably on the chair facing him is middle-aged and beautiful in a way that John can't help thinking shouldn't be allowed; rich and warm and mature. Once upon a time he would have been tripping over himself in the presence of this woman; right now, all he can think is that he should have saved the gesture of wiping Sherlock's face until she could see it and know that he was out of bounds.

He hands a mug of tea to the detective and places his own on the table beside his chair; to the woman, he smiles politely and asks, "Tea, Ms…?"

"St. Claire," she replies, and her voice is low and throaty, like sex and lung cancer. "Mrs, not Ms." John breathes a sigh of relief. "Yes, please. Milk and one."

John nods and moves off to the kitchen, but Sherlock's voice calls him back. "John?" He makes an exaggerated gesture of wiping his mouth. John catches sight of his face in the mirror above the mantelpiece and realises that Sherlock's boysenberry stain was nothing compared to his own. He wipes it off embarrassedly. His flatmate smiles and – was that a _wink_ Sherlock just gave him?

"So, Mrs St. Claire," the detective addresses as though nothing has happened, "what can I do for you?"

John deposits a cup of tea in front of her and curls up in his own armchair. "Well," she starts, "my husband has gone missing." Sherlock raises an eyebrow elegantly. "He went away on a business trip – he does that often, he's the liaison officer for the MED offices – and he was supposed to come back on Sunday, but he didn't. He didn't call or anything to say he was going to be late – he just wasn't on the plane and we haven't heard from him since."

"I'm assuming Scotland Yard know about this?" Sherlock interrupts swiftly.

Mrs St. Claire blinks at him. "Yes, I rang them the night he didn't come home. After I'd rung the company and the hotel he was staying at."

"Then I suggest you let them deal with it." John coughs slightly; it's become a sort of _bit not good_ signal between the two of them. Sherlock glances at the doctor with a sort of idle smile on his face. "I'm afraid I can't help you."

The woman shifts in her seat, looking affronted. "But Mr Holmes, I hadn't even finished my account," she protests. Sherlock's eyebrow makes another skyward bid. "I saw him in Southwark on Monday morning."

For a moment there is silence except for the soft drumming of Sherlock's long fingers on the leather arm of his chair. "In Southwark," John repeats slowly. Mrs St. Claire turns her huge blue eyes on him.

"Yes," she repeats, in the hugely patronising tone of someone talking to a child. "In a hospital for the destitute, in Southwark." She flicks her slick blonde hair over her shoulder before turning back to Sherlock as though John were some kind of insect that had required her attention for a moment. He starts to get a bit annoyed. "I do charity work sometimes, and I haven't been down there in years, but when Neville disappeared I felt… I felt like any good deed might help, you know?" Sherlock – who had no idea – just raised an eyebrow. "So I was walking down the main street and I looked up at the windows of this hospital, and I saw Neville's face. I was… shocked, but I thought maybe he was being held there against his will, so I ran into the hospital and up the stairs, but when I got to the room I'd seen him in there was no-one there but this smelly old beggar with a harelip. I looked everywhere, but Neville wasn't there. In the corner of the room, though, there were these…"

She looks down at her fingers, twisting together in her lap. "My sister has two children, and Neville is very fond of them. I think he's always wanted children, but we don't… we just don't have the right lifestyle for a child, you know?"

She looks at Sherlock again, as though for confirmation that this was the right argument, but of course it's a lost cause. The consulting detective glances at John before making a gesture to continue. "I'm assuming there was a point to that statement, Mrs St. Claire."

"Yes, well… Kelsey, the youngest, she had these wooden blocks that we gave her for Christmas last year, and they broke the week before Neville went away. He promised her he'd replace them when he came back. I was beginning to think I'd imagined seeing him in the window, that I was just worried… but those blocks were in the corner of the room. And there was…" she breaks off for a moment, takes a deep breath and looks up again. "There was blood on the windowsill. I called the police, and they arrested the beggar, but I… I don't understand why he was there, what happened. And it sounds stupid, but I feel like I'd _know_ if Neville was dead, you know?"

John almost laughs at the way she keeps asking 'you know?' to Sherlock about the emotional matters, like he's a normal person, like he'll understand. The consulting detective stands up, fingers still steepled in front of his lips, and starts to pace in front of Mrs St. Claire. "So I'm guessing the police story is that the beggar turned nasty and somehow hefted your husband out the window and the body ended up with the beggars down below, who got rid of it?"

The woman shrugs majestically. "Something along those lines, yes."

"Mmm. Who was the officer in charge of the investigation?"

"A young man. Bad-tempered. Detective Inspector Dimmock, have you heard of him?"

Sherlock throws John a dark look. John chuckles. "Yes," Sherlock growls. "Yes, I certainly have. Well, this promises to be interesting. Dimmock's story is almost certainly not only wrong but stupid. Are they holding your beggar at Pentonville, Mrs St. Claire?"

The woman dips her head. "I believe so." Sherlock pulls out his phone and starts texting furiously.

"Thank you. If you could leave a point of contact with us, we'll be in touch at some point tomorrow." John waits for the showing off, the string of deductions, but Mrs St. Claire does not request them, and so Sherlock, with a slight grudging air, does not deliver. John pretends not to be even a little bit disappointed.

After the woman is gone, Sherlock lifts the phone to his ear. "Lestrade? It's me. Can I get DI Dimmock's extension? I'm afraid he's been royally incompetent. Again." John chuckles as he collects everyone's teacups from the coffee table; Sherlock catches his eye and smirks. "Thank you. John, I'm going out. I'll be back for dinner."

John blinks up at him. "What, you don't want me to come with you?" He can't help the slight disappointed pooch of his lower lip; Sherlock chuckles. For a moment - one wild, crazy, incredible moment - John actually thinks Sherlock is about to lean forward and peck him on the cheek goodbye. He leans forward to meet the kiss, but it doesn't happen. Sherlock's lips tighten into an almost imperceptible smile.

"Oh, John," he says fondly, patting him on the arm. "If you came with me on _every_ case, how would I ever be able to function without you?"

With that, the detective grabs his coat and rushes out the door. "You won't," John says uselessly to the dead space he leaves behind, suddenly feeling the gaping emptiness of the flat. "That's the idea."


	7. Jealousy

_Silent Witness_ is on.

Sherlock seems to have an uncanny knack for turning the television on just in time to hear the opening themes of _Midsomer Murders, NCIS, Criminal Minds, _or another one of those myriad insanely unrealistic crime-shows. He insists it's luck. John reckons he actually checks to see when they're on, because as much as he claims not to enjoy them, he certainly gets right behind the characters.

Today is no different; John carries two cups of steaming tea into the living-room in time to hear the first bar of the _Silent Witness _theme and roll his eyes at the detective. Sherlock shrugs indifferently, as though he really couldn't care less. John, as usual, lets him have his delusions.

He's really a lot more intelligent than the detective gives him credit for, and there are a lot of things that Sherlock thinks John doesn't notice: his love of crap television, the way he sneaks Tim-Tams out of John's special stash, and the odd yawns when he hasn't slept the night before. Sherlock insists that he needs neither food nor sleep, and so John humours him, pretends he doesn't notice Sherlock's body protesting – the yawns, the bleary eyes, the slight gurgles and grumbles of an empty stomach, the way the fridge is always slightly emptier when he wakes up than it was when he went to bed.

John sits down beside the detective on the settee and tries tucking his legs up under him in an imitation of Sherlock's 'thinking pose'. It's not particularly comfortable, so he desists and instead resigns himself to the sort of sub-standard thinking that apparently comes from sitting in any other position. This, he reasons to himself, is why he'll never be Sherlock.

Sherlock's proximity doesn't really help, especially since he's what John wants to think about. The fact that the detective is _right there_ reduces John's coherent chain of _how to seduce Sherlock Holmes, step one… _to something more like _I want him so much if he doesn't fall for this I think I'll die. I'll have to move out – what'll Stamford say? Oh, God, he's moved another centimetre. I think he's watching me out of the corner of his – focus, John. How to seduce him. Focus._

He knows the detective wants him. By Sherlock's own descriptors, they're attracted to each other – when he'd licked the compote off his fingers his flatmate's pupils had dilated and his cheeks had flushed, and suddenly he'd been in a terrific hurry to get out of there. But where does he go now?

He's about to turn and look at the detective in a kind of surreptitious manner when he realises that Sherlock is already looking at him, his grey eyes peeking cautiously sideways in an attempt to observe without being observed. John supresses a smile.

Sherlock's phone shouts a quick warning and the detective's eyes snap away from him quickly. John breathes out; for some reason, when his friend is looking at him, it's difficult to remember how to do ordinary things like respiration. "John," Sherlock says, making no attempt to locate the source of the trill. "John, phone."

John looks at him nonchalantly. "It's _your_ phone."

The World's Only Consulting Detective rolls his eyes. John's noticed that Sherlock has utterly perfected this movement . "Yes, but you're closer."

"Oh, sorry, is it interrupting your program?" John quips, but of course he reaches for the phone – an arm's length away from him – as he says it, so the detective doesn't reply. "Sherlock's phone," John answers it resignedly. Sherlock turns back to the television. John smirks.

"Is… is Mr Holmes there?" asks a timid, throaty voice. "It's Alice." John casts a suspicious look at Sherlock, his brain firing off the worst-case-scenarios of who 'Alice' might be before the woman expands. "Alice St. Claire, we met yesterday – Mr Holmes is trying to find my husband."

John stops himself from sighing in relief. "Oh, yes, of course. This is John Watson, I was there yesterday as well." He looks down at the detective and mouths _Alice St Claire. _Sherlock shakes his head. "Um. He's actually in the shower at the moment," he lies. Sherlock's lips turn up into a lazy and utterly delectable half-smile. "Could I help instead?"

"Oh. Um… I was really just wondering if he's made any progress. I know it's probably too soon but I'm really worried about him. This isn't Neville at all and I just wanted to check…"

He gives Sherlock a questioning look, but the detective is looking so intently at the telly one would actually think he was _watching_ it if they didn't know better. "I'm not sure, Mrs St. Claire. He went to Pentonville yesterday after you left and I think he made some progress there, but if he had any definite news he would have called you," John lies smoothly. Sherlock smirks again, darting a languid look in his live-in PA's direction.

"He's dead," the detective says quietly.

John freezes. Sherlock looks up at him, tilting his head adorably to cast a look that seems desperate for approval and makes the doctor's stomach twist uncomfortably, and not for the reason it _should_ be twisting at those words. He stares back for a second and mouths, _what?_ But Sherlock isn't looking at him anymore – someone on the television has just been shot.

"Did he say anything when he came back? I don't mean to be annoying, but… did he look pleased? I just… I just want to know whether he thinks Neville is still alive or not."

The words sandwich him between a rock and something else hard, and he stares at the profile of Sherlock's face, silhouetted by the sunlight from the window and tainted by the flickering reds of the telly. "I had a theory, but I was wrong," Sherlock elaborates after the on-screen tension has died down a bit. "Dimmock was right. I can't prove it yet, but he's dead, I'm sure of it."

"Um…"

Mrs St. Claire's voice is tremulous when she cuts him off, and for some reason he's forcibly reminded of Mrs Monkford from that case all those months ago. "Please, Mr Watson. I'm a grown woman. I can take it and I just want to know the truth. Does Mr Holmes think my husband is still alive?"

John looks from Sherlock to the window and back again. Sherlock's lips have curled back up into a lazy smile as though he's actually enjoying the moral agony his flatmate has managed to place himself in again. Then he sighs. "No, Mrs St. Claire."

There's silence. He tries to think of something else to say, something that will make this better, but there's nothing. "But, you know, Sherlock's been wrong before." The detective's face shoots around to look at him indignantly. He throws him a look that says, _you wanna dispute that, soldier?_

"I just don't think he _can _be dead, Mr Watson," Alice St. Claire moans desolately. "I'd _know._ I mean, he cut his finger in the bathroom a week ago, and I was in the kitchen and I _knew_ something was wrong…"

John begins to switch off. It's a really awful habit, he knows, and yet with Sherlock's profession and his perhaps unhealthy habit of running half a step behind him, he's listened to so many _oh-my-God-my-husband-can't-be-dead _speeches that they all start to blend in together even as he listens to the next one. He sits patiently and pretends to listen while the detective rolls his eyes in a decidedly unsympathetic way and Mrs St. Claire runs herself down into a few short bursts of tears. "Sorry," she finishes pathetically.

"Don't be sorry, Alice. _I'm_ sorry. There's still a chance he's still alive, of course, so… don't… completely give up hope." Sherlock snorts. John smacks him on the arm.

Eventually, he pries the woman off the phone and throws the offending piece of gadgetry at Sherlock, sighing heavily. "How sure are you? Because I did _not_ just tell that woman her husband was dead over the phone because you have another _theory._"

"I'm sure, John," Sherlock affirms. "I just have to figure out how to prove it." John sighs and settles down more comfortably on the settee. It takes a moment of strict self-control to stop himself draping an arm around Sherlock's shoulders; this feels so normal, lounging around together of a morning, Sherlock wrapped in pyjamas and a duvet. After a while, he sucks it up and, his heart thudding nervously with the fear of rejection, leans his shoulders against the detective's side. Sherlock wriggles around under him for a moment, but doesn't protest. John can feel the smirk radiating off his face and knows that Sherlock knows _exactly_ what he's doing.

"So," his flatmate says lazily. The air is warm, and John feels drowsy; he could fall asleep like this, as close to cuddling as he could ever expect Sherlock to allow him. "How was the denial speech, then?"

John yawns and snuggles a little closer. "Oh, you know. _He can't be, he just can't be, I'd know. _What is it with women and this sixth sense they think they have? She kept going on about how he cut his finger a week ago and she'd known something was wrong and run up to the – Sherlock?"

The detective has stiffened against him, his every nerve ending suddenly tense and ready. "Say that again," he says, his voice a low growl that causes an involuntary, confused stirring in John's abdomen.

"Huh? What part?"

Sherlock shrugs John off like the duvet and stands up, his fingers flying to join in front of his lips. "He cut his finger, did you say?"

"Yeah?" John stares blearily up at his flatmate, dishevelled and otherworldly, the light of inspiration dancing in his eyes. Sherlock shoots a fantastic, dazzling smile his way.

John blinks wildly as the blue silk dressing gown lands on his lap; Sherlock disrobes so casually, as though he doesn't realise his body is cause for reverence and worship. He takes in a sharp breath as the baggy grey t-shirt unceremoniously follows the gown, but the now bare-chested Sherlock gives him a positively salacious _I know you're staring_ look before marching off into his bedroom. "Get your coat, John," he calls over his shoulder. "We're going to Pentonville."

"Oh, you _want_ me to come this time, do you?" John bites back. Sherlock's chuckle drifts out of the open door.

"Of course," the voice floats back, rich with mirth. "Don't tell me you're still upset about last night. You wouldn't have enjoyed that one, I didn't do anything clever."

He tries not to pout, then realises Sherlock is out of the room anyway, and lets his lips fall into the expression. "I'm good for more than the occasional ejaculation of 'brilliant!', you know," he ventures.

"Oh, I _know_, John," Sherlock says, and John is pleased to note that as he emerges from the bedroom his face is deadly serious. "I really do." John grins dismissively and yanks his jacket from the hook by the door. Sherlock's face sets back into its business expression, feverishly excited but single-mindedly focussed. "Can you call Dimmock? Tell him we've found St Claire _and_ I have a new lead on that stock-market scam in April."

John blinks, just barely catching the phone Sherlock throws at him. "What, the con artists?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes at John's crap telly-bred terminology. "Yes, John. Hurry up, we're leaving."

John, as usual, struggles to keep up as the detective races out the door, pressing the phone to his ear and almost tripping over the last step and landing on his face.

They arrive at Pentonville Prison in a flurry of black coats and curls and scarves – well, Sherlock does – and imperiously demand access to the cell where they're holding Humphrey Boone, the homeless man being held in connection with the disappearance of Neville St. Claire. John tries to look as though he has some idea of what's about to happen, but he has to admit that when Dimmock turns up, red in the face and clearly hankering to yell at someone, he's just as clueless as the rest of them.

Sherlock, the wanker, knows exactly how confused everyone else is, and is enjoying every moment of it. "Officer Gregson," he addresses to the guard in front of the cell, remarkably like a magician announcing his final trick. "Would you be so kind as to fetch me a bowl of water and a sponge? Thank you."

The burly young officer looks to Dimmock for confirmation, then slumps off. Sherlock jitters around for a moment.

"You said something about the April stock crashes?" Dimmock prompts impatiently. Sherlock, visibly buzzing with excitement, nods quickly.

"Yes. The man in that cell was intimately linked with them, as was Neville St. Claire. In fact, it's not the only thing they've done – do you remember that case last November, John, with the film crew for the BBC who were cheated out of all that money?"

John grins. "The one you refused to take because it was boring and obvious?"

"Yes, that one." They share a knowing smile before Gregson returns, at which juncture Sherlock positively wriggles in delight. "Now. I'd like everyone to know that I have found Neville St Claire." John tries to supress the giggle at his antics and settles for rolling his eyes at Dimmock instead. The DI scowls.

Inside the cell, Humphrey Boone sits slumped against a corner, asleep. His entire body is covered in filth and a huge gash rends the grimy skin of his ugly face. A clown-like mop of red hair assaults the grey of the wall. Sherlock gestures dramatically for quiet. This time, John can't stop the giggle ripping gently out of his throat. The detective glares at him, folding his arms crossly over his chest. He clears his throat. "Sorry. It's just – you would have made an incredible magician."

Dimmock sniggers, and John immediately feels guilty. It's one thing for _him_ to laugh at Sherlock's antics, but when people like Dimmock join in it stops being all in fun and becomes derogatory, like Donovan's constant title of 'freak' that John takes such offense to. Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him coolly.

"So, Mr Holmes?" Dimmock interjects rudely. "You said you'd found St. Claire."

Sherlock blinks. "Oh, yes. All in good time. First, though, I think we should give Mr Boone here a bit of a wash, don't you?" Gregson barks out a laugh.

"Damn right, Mr Holmes, sir. He's refused the bath since we picked him up."

The detective gives a little smirk that says that this is exactly what he was expecting. "Has he? Well, then, I think we should help him out."

With a completely unnecessary dramatic flourish, he takes the bowl and sponge from Gregson and wipes a wet line down the sleeping man's face, waking him with a start; before he has a chance to fight back or even register that someone is attacking him with a wet sponge, Sherlock has wiped the grime from his face enough to take hold of the corner of the scar and peel it off like a false moustache, followed quickly by the mop of orange hair. John can't help a little gasp of surprise.

"Gentlemen," Sherlock concludes quietly, smirking knowingly at John, "may I introduce you to Mr Neville St. Claire – ostensibly a foreign liaison officer, more recently thief and con artist _extraordinaire._"

The man howls in despair and curls up into a ball, hiding his face with his filthy sleeves. Dimmock's bottom jaw clicks as it almost hits the floor. Sherlock's face settles into its usual _so there_ expression, and John completely sympathises with his glee at being so right. "Oh, my God," the DI breathes. "It is, too. It's the missing guy." St. Claire gives out a desolate moan. "So you're saying he was involved in the April stock scandals?"

"Intimately," Sherlock confirms, looking down scornfully at the man on the floor. "I'd say it was a small team, probably not more than five of them. St. Claire was the face of the team – his background in the theatre made him the perfect man to adopt whatever trustworthy persona the scam required. If you search his background it shouldn't be too hard to find the others. I'm sure a little questioning will get them all to open up about the other confidence frauds they've committed together."

Sherlock's look is almost expectant, so John shakes his head, grinning. "Brilliant," he says softly. Sherlock beams at him before turning quickly back to the man between them.

"Mr St. Claire?" he says briskly, crouching until he is on the older man's level. "I think the game is up now." Slowly, the actor begins to sit up, now disguised only in an enormous scowl. "There are some parts I'm not quite clear on. Simply impersonating a beggar isn't a crime with a serious consequence – once it became clear that you would be found guilty of murder, why didn't you give yourself up? No-one would have looked any further into the other personas you've been adapting over the years."

Neville St. Claire sighs. "Alice," he grates out in a gravelly rumble. "Alice doesn't know about this. She wouldn't want to stay with me if she knew – I'd rather spend my life in prison than have my wife and my family know I'm a thief and a fraud."

Sherlock's cool grey eyes lift gently up to John's face. "I'm sorry," he says gently. John blinks at him – is Sherlock _apologising_ to a client for telling the truth? "She has a right to know."

John feels compelled to add, "I think you might be underestimating your wife, though, Mr St. Claire. She loves you very much."

He looks up to where Sherlock has stood up again; the detective is looking at him almost pityingly. When he sees John watching, he shakes his head.

He's right, of course. Alice St. Claire arrives half an hour later and very loudly denounces her husband amid the catcalls from the other temporary cells around them, leaving theatrically with a deafening sob of _I'll file for the divorce tomorrow._

John flinches. In the cacophony as they show her out and begin to move St. Claire to an interrogation room, Sherlock touches him on the shoulder and gently shows him his wristwatch. "John," he rumbles amusedly. "Don't you have clinic duty?"

Indeed, he was supposed to be at the surgery twenty minutes ago; he swears and rushes out to work, and by the time he returns it's late afternoon. He remembers the morning, lazily leaning against each other on the settee, and ducks into the video store on his way home.

On the corner of Baker Street, he stops in surprise. Sherlock is standing outside the door to 221, leaning against the wall, looking thoroughly bored as Alice St. Claire, dry-eyed and animated, talks at him. Both sport the air of people who have been in this situation for a very long time; St. Claire has settled into a definite rhythm with her talking, and Sherlock looks as though he's settled into a definite rhythm with playing _how shall I murder her? _in his head.

He huffs out a laugh and starts forward to rescue him, but before he's taken two steps, the blonde leans forward and presses an eager kiss on Sherlock's lips.

John stops dead. He's never thought of himself as the jealous type, but then he knows now that he's never loved anyone this fiercely before and so all bets are off, and he's sure as hell jealous now. The worst thing – the _worst_ thing is that Sherlock doesn't seem to be complaining. Sure, he doesn't look like he's _enjoying_ it exactly, but he isn't making any efforts to break it off and he's got his arms on her shoulders and she's got her _mouth open_, good God she's got her mouth open and rage is flooding blood to John's muscles like an adrenaline shot, and he wants to run down the street and rip them apart and put _his_ lips and teeth and tongue in place of hers, because he's _earned_ this and she hasn't, but his feet seem rooted to the spot and he can't move.

He forces himself to breathe in and out and watch quietly as Sherlock gets a purchase on Mrs St. Claire's shoulders and pushes her away. His cheekbones are flushed a delicate pink and he's stammering in shock, and even though John fully expects him to turn and run into the flat he stands his ground.

John doesn't hear what he says next, but it makes Alice St. Claire's mouth drop open in surprise and then it's the woman who turns and flees, leaving Sherlock to slowly, almost _thoughtfully_ run one finger over his delectable cupid's-bow lips and wander back into the flat.

He counts to ten. Then he follows.

Sherlock is already sprawled over the sofa when he enters, busy wrapping himself in the discarded duvet from the morning. He looks up when John bangs the door and his smile quickly turns into a frown of disapproval.

"What's the matter with _you_?"

John wants to reply with something as immensely childish as, 'Nothing, what's the matter with _you_?', but he refrains. He decided on the walk – well, _stomp_, really – into the flat that he would pretend he hadn't seen anything and see what Sherlock said. "The surgery was busy," he lies shortly. Sherlock smirks.

"Yes, I'd imagine arriving half an hour late wouldn't exactly do wonders for the queue outside your office," he remarks idly. John's fists clench.

"That was your fault as much as anybody's," he retorts, stomping into the kitchen and flicking on the kettle so hard he almost flicked the switch right off. "And I didn't know Alice was going to nut off like that."

When he comes back into the sitting room, Sherlock is staring guiltily into the empty fire grate. "No," he replies absently. "No, neither did I at first."

John's anger flares up again at the way the name sobers his flatmate back into this thoughtful state, and he tosses his arms up in the air. "What was with you, anyway?" he accuses. "You actually _apologised_ to the man."

The consulting detective hugs the duvet closer to him. "I didn't realise," he says quietly. "I didn't understand, I didn't even think that he would sacrifice himself for his family's reputation like that. But when he said, I… I think I'd do the same, John." His eyes, deadly serious, meet John's. "I'd rather die than live with the knowledge that you thought I was a fraud."

His arms drop limply by his side, the anger leaking through the pores of his skin until he can't grasp onto it any longer. He sighs. "Yeah, well," he says quietly. "The difference is, you're _not_ a fraud. And nothing _anybody_ said would make me think you were."

Sherlock grins brightly at him over the whistling of the kettle, and John ends the conversation by retreating into the kitchen and feeling like punching something in frustration.

Conversations with Sherlock never went the way he wanted them to. Every time he tried to be angry with the detective, he somehow managed to twist things so that John would feel sorry for him, or admire him, or laugh with him, and all the purpose he had invested in the conversation drains away from him. He realises, when he thinks about the kiss again, that if Sherlock _did_ take up with someone else, or even just turn him down, he wouldn't have the heart to leave him. He'd want to, of course, at least for a while, but he wouldn't be able to if it wasn't what Sherlock wanted.

"John," the detective ventures in a tentative manner, with the slightly guilty air of someone who's about to fess up to something heinous. "You don't _mind_ if people think we're together anymore, do you?"

To back up his resounding _not really, Sherlock, _he plonks a cup of tea in front of him and pushes his feet aside, the bag from the video store clutched in his hand. "Oh, good," Sherlock says cheerfully. "Because it'll probably be in the news later this week."

He chokes on his first sip of tea. "_What?_ In the _news_? Why?"

Sherlock curls up tighter so that his feet no longer brush against John's thigh, and his leg immediately feels cold. "Alice St. Claire was here earlier," he admits, his voice small and quiet. "She, um… she started kissing me."

"Yes," John says wryly, trying to sound unaffected. "I saw that."

Sherlock looks up at him sharply, a frown slapping itself onto his angular face. He tries not to look angry, or jealous, or disappointed, or any of the things he feels. "Well, I… I didn't know what to do to make her stop, so I told her I was already in a relationship with you."

He stares. The detective cringes, waiting for him to get angry, but after a few moments, he can't help but laugh. Relief makes him giddy and giggly, planting a hand on Sherlock's foot to anchor himself just because he _can_, he still can, because Sherlock would still rather be with him than the blonde and beautiful woman who threw herself at him ten minutes ago. "Sex really _does_ alarm you, doesn't it?" he teases, breaking into giggles again when his friend scowls. "Wow," he muses when he's calmed down. "They've got a quote from you now. That means it's official."

While John expects Sherlock to hit him, or deny it, or say _something_ snarky and defensive, the consulting detective just smiles and reaches for the bag on the table. "What's in here?" he asks interestedly, tugging at it like a toddler.

"Our next movie-marathon," John answers, picking up the bag and tossing it at Sherlock for easy access. The detective pours out the four films onto his lap, sitting up and putting his feet up on John's knees.

John isn't sure what he was expecting as a reaction, but Sherlock looks up at him with a face like a thundercloud. "Mycroft told you?" he asks. The doctor looks down at the complete set of the _Pirates of the Caribbean _films, nonplussed.

"He mentioned it briefly once, yeah," he says carefully. "Just in passing, after he told me Irene Adler was d- in America," he rescues quickly. Sherlock raises an eyebrow at the slip. "I think he was trying to make a point, but I never really got what the point was."

Sherlock's hands clench on the pile of films. "He was always mocking me about it, making it sound so stupid," he grinds out between clenched teeth. "I'm glad the two of you could have a laugh about it."

"I wasn't laughing, Sherlock," John counters, dismayed, once again, at the angle the conversation has taken without his consent. "It's not stupid to want to be a pirate. _I _wanted to be a pirate. Hell, I _still _want to be a pirate, especially when I watch Johnny Depp do it." Sherlock's fingers start to relax. "I thought you might appreciate the… I don't know, the blast from the past or whatever. We don't have to watch them."

For a moment, Sherlock doesn't speak. Then he lifts _The Curse of the Black Pearl_ out of the pile and tosses the rest carelessly back onto the table. "Thank you, John," he says softly. "This is really… no-one's ever… cared about what _I_ might like before."

John squeezes Sherlock's feet gently. "Well, I do," he says firmly. "Very much. Now get off me, I'm making Bolognese."


	8. Brighton Beach

The next morning, he purposefully leaves his clothes downstairs.

Sherlock is still lying on the sofa where John left him after _Pirates_ last night, wrapped in the duvet and staring vaguely at the ceiling. Tonight John will make him sleep, but for now he lets him have his own way; he wanted him in this position anyway. The great detective sits up as John comes into the room, skin pink from its vigorous towelling, said towel wrapped snugly around his waist.

"Morning, Sherlock," he says brightly. Sherlock grunts out a reply without looking at him, so he makes sure he crosses right in front of his flatmate to bend over the laundry basket in search of clean pants.

When he manages a sneaky look back, he crows inwardly in delight. Sherlock's eyes are wide as he stares somewhere in the vicinity of John's back. Or it might be his arse. He can't quite tell. When he straightens up, he smirks and tries to adopt a lazy, baritone drawl. "Sherlock," he says in this manner, and watches the tremor in the detective's pale hand on the duvet. "You're staring."

Sherlock looks away from John's bare chest hurriedly. "You're right in my face," he says defensively. John chuckles, clutching his pile of clothes, and retreats to the bathroom.

"I know what you're trying to do, John," drifts back to him in the _real_ lazy baritone drawl. He zips his fly and re-emerges.

"Is that so?" he asks, making a beeline for the kitchen.

Sherlock, he sees on his way past, has recovered himself and now sits with his fingers tented under his chin and a soft smirk on his face. "Yes," he affirms confidently. "And it won't work."

John smirks harder, taking a few steps backwards in order to catch the detective's eyes as he chuckles. "It already has."

So many of Sherlock's emotions are displayed so fleetingly, so minutely, that it would take John Watson to spot them at all, and anyone with a modicum less compassion would assume such thought processes didn't happen at all behind the jutting cheekbones and icy expression. Now, even John has to watch carefully to see the flicker of shock and the tiny spread of guilt contract the detective's face. He stands back, satisfied. "And you _know_ it has."

He plonks a plate of toast down in front of his flatmate and stands over him like a housewife, hands on hips. Sherlock's grey eyes travel slowly up John's body before they reach his face, half-lidded from drowsiness, utterly sexy. John tries not to shiver. "Eat," he says instead. Sherlock opens his mouth to protest. "Now."

Sherlock folds his arms over his chest; if John's going to play mother, then the detective is sure as hell going to play child. "Won't," he says pettishly. John just laughs and rests his arse on the coffee table while he munches on his own toast.

The thing is, though, they both know it's just a farce, and when Sherlock eventually huffs in distaste and picks up the piece of toast, neither man is surprised. "Thank you," John says graciously. Sherlock immaturely displays his mouthful of half-chewed bread-and-jam. John nods as though he expected this, too.

"Got anything lined up for today, then?" he asks, collecting both empty plates.

Sherlock stretches indolently over the back of the sofa. "Not yet. I'm sure something will turn up."

John pats him lovingly on the arm as he grabs his keys off the table and his coat off the hook. "Of course it will. If it doesn't, though… you can always come and see me at the surgery."

The detective's grey eyes widen in surprise; John feels the now-familiar rush at having done something Sherlock didn't expect. "Bit of a change of heart, isn't it, John? Last time I turned up at the surgery while you were working you shouted at me."

There's genuine hurt in his eyes, for which John immediately feels guilty. Sometimes he thinks he treats Sherlock a little too much like a child, sheltering him and scolding him; and yet, sometimes he thinks he doesn't mother him enough. Everyone needs _someone_ to take care of them. "I'm sorry. I get grumpy at work because I'd rather be out solving a case with you." He reaches up a hand to gently swipe the toast crumbs away from Sherlock's face and pretends he doesn't notice when the detective leans into the touch. "I'd always rather be with you."

Sherlock smiles. "Is this the part where we kiss, Doctor?" he teases, and the tone of his voice is so completely insincere that any _oh, God, yes_ response that might have been on the tip of his tongue vanishes.

He steps away and turns back to the door, blinking away his disappointment, and because of this, he misses the little sway in his direction that Sherlock makes, as though he's unsteady on his feet without John there to balance him. "Well, I'll be back around two if nothing happens, so text me if you're out and about on a case and you want me." He falters as his brain highlights the innuendo. "There. If you want me there. To help with the case. I'll see you later."

He doesn't turn around to see Sherlock's smirk as he leaves, or the way his best friend's eyes follow his arse as he runs out of the door.

* * *

><p>Sherlock doesn't need him throughout the day, and it's a slightly disappointed John who makes his way up the stairs to 221B at around half-past two. He's so preoccupied with hoping Sherlock's inside that he doesn't quite see the suitcase right in front of the door until he's already tripped over it and landed on his face.<p>

From the floor, he hears the distinctive sound of a consulting detective chuckling. "You put that there on purpose, didn't you, you git," he grumbles, getting up.

His flatmate doesn't try to feign innocence. "Yes," he replies instead. "I wanted you to know as soon as you came in that we're going away for the night."

"How romantic," John comments. Sherlock smirks. "Why?"

The detective stands up, fingers tented in front of his lips. "A case, John, we've got a case! It's in the country, I packed enough for three nights but I wouldn't expect this to take more than one. All three of the crime-scenes have been preserved quite well, apparently – and Hutchinson is very precise."

Constable Hutchinson must be Sherlock's favourite forensics expert. John sometimes wonders whether he overdoes his praise on purpose, or whether he's just blown away by anyone in the forensics field who isn't Anderson. "Right," John says. "So when do we –"

"In about half an hour. I wanted to give you time to eat something and have a bit of a sit-down, but you were half an hour later than I expected you."

John blinks in surprise. "You… you made time in your plans for me to have lunch?'

Sherlock stops to look at him as though this isn't radically out of the ordinary. "Of course," he says happily. "You only think when you've eaten, and I need you functional with me. This case looks promising."

"Yeah? What is it?"

He catches the manila file Sherlock throws at him; inside are some rather gruesome pictures of bodies. He recognises the one at the back. "Hey! That's the murder I told you about last week! The one you said was boring, the meat-house murder in Brighton!"

"Yes, well, it wasn't interesting on its own, but now there have been three of them it becomes much more stimulating."

John rolls his eyes. "Well, I'm sure it won't be a stretch for the World's Only Consulting Detective."

Sherlock flinches visibly. "Don't do that," he says, his voice so quiet and small suddenly John has to strain to hear it.

He blinks. "Do what, Sherlock?"

"Don't say it like that, like I'm some kind of circus attraction. _Roll up, ladies and gents, roll up, come and have a gawp at the World's Only Consulting Detective. _I'm not a performing monkey."

John has to take a moment and stare at this new vulnerability. "I meant it as a compliment," he says quietly. "I'm sorry you saw it like that. I think you're incredible, Sherlock."

"Yes, I know." Sherlock's long, pale fingers start up a jumpy, staccato beat on the black of his knee. "I get sick of people who read your blog approaching me on the street and asking me, _Are you Sherlock Holmes? Can you do that thing, your trick? Do it on me, go on, please please please. _Like I'm some kind of performer or magician."

He thinks back to his comment the other day about Sherlock's flourishes, like a performer on stage, and feels even more guilty. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, I really am. But… they don't mean it like that, either. They do it because they're impressed."

Sherlock looks at him for a bit longer, then he relaxes. "I know. And it's not your fault your blog's gone viral. It just… I didn't think all this attention would be like this. I don't mind if people don't like me after they meet me. It's when they think I'm a freak without ever actually meeting me that I start to get offended."

"You're not a freak." John's not sure why that word always makes him so angry. It isn't just that Sherlock is brilliant, and the people who can't wrap their heads around what he does to such an extent as to apply the insult don't deserve to peel the mud off his shoes. He's _always_ hated the word; anyone using it in the army had used it once and once only. His flatmate looks up at him, surprised at the anger in his voice. "One day, I am going to start going around and punching everyone who calls you that, because you're not. They're just scared. You know, they called Janet Frame a freak, too."

If he expects Sherlock to look nonplussed and ask him who Janet Frame was, he's disappointed. "Am I supposed to be grateful they're not diagnosing me with schizophrenia and giving me electric shock therapy?"

When he's recovered from the shock of Sherlock's sudden cultural knowledge, he shrugs. "I'm just saying. People are afraid of genius because they don't understand it, so they'll try to fix it. Genius is in the minority, like homosexuals, so they must be wrong."

Sherlock snorts. "Virtuoso pianists are in the minority, too," he points out.

"Exactly."

They watch each other until Sherlock can't keep the grin off his face. As soon as it appears, John mimics it. "If you put the kettle on now, John, we'll just have time for a cup of tea before the cab gets here."

* * *

><p>"We probably won't be able to do anything tonight," Sherlock comments as they settle themselves on the train. "By the time we get there, we'll probably just have time to drop our bags at the hotel and run down to meet the Detective Sergeant in charge."<p>

John picks up the manila file again, opening it and spreading its contents out across the table in front of them. "Right," he says matter-of-factly. "What do we know, then?"

Sherlock shoots him a grateful smile. "Well, the killer seems to like his colours. You so perceptively noted with the first murder that everything was red; he dresses them up in one colour, picks a spot that reflects that colour, etcetera. Rather juvenile, but it seems to work for him – there have been three bodies so far, all women. The first one you already know; it was found in a meat-packer's, decked out in red. The second they found in a tulip bed in the botanical gardens –"

"What colour were the tulips?" John interjects. Sherlock shoots him a look.

"Orange, I was getting there. The third victim was found on the beach," he taps the photo. The woman, blonde and ragdoll-thin, has been mercilessly arranged into a ghastly yellow dress almost the exact shade as the sand underneath her. John grimaces. "The first victim was not only stabbed to death but pretty much disembowelled – there was blood everywhere. The second victim's throat had been cut. The third victim was strangled."

John nods. "Because blood would have messed with his colour scheme."

"Yes." Sherlock's fingers tap and shift at the pictures, moving them into different patterns and arrangements, flying over the forensic notes and reports as though he can read them by touch. "Given that the victims were all female, we're probably dealing with a man, and they all look fairly similar, so I think we're safe in saying it's a specific fantasy. The rape kit was negative, so it isn't a sexual thing – well, his anger with whoever these women represent isn't sexual, but I wouldn't rule out sexual sadism as the underlying motive, it usually is, a crime this specific."

One can almost see the facts and figures dancing in Sherlock's grey irises. John realises his mouth is open and shuts it before he starts drooling; Sherlock, of course, notices and smirks. "Oh, and I meant to tell you before, I could only get a double room – I probably won't sleep, but I'm sure you won't mind sharing a bed if I do."

He grins, realises he might look slightly lecherous, and tries to stop. "Course not. You don't toss and turn or snore or cuddle, do you?"

Sherlock smirks. "No doubt if things come to it you'll find out."

John's hair stands on end at the nape of his neck at the image of waking up to find a consulting detective draped all over him like an extra blanket. A _sleeping_ Sherlock is a marvellous thing to behold – even before this whole seduction thing kicked off, John had caught himself more than once sitting in his armchair and staring at his best friend's face, nestled in the arms of Morpheus and looking as though he hadn't a care in the world.

They have the compartment to themselves, and John is almost disappointed when the train stops in Brighton and they have to rejoin the realms of other people. Sherlock, too, surveys the mass of people running around the train station with undisguised disdain.

Detective Sergeant Diston is a rather solid man; John gets the impression that he could quite easily take on a brick wall and come off the better. Sherlock grimaces in pain when the man clasps one of the consulting detective's delicate hands in both of his huge meaty ones and squeezes. "_So_ chuffed you could make it out here for us, Mister Holmes," he says genially. "And Doctor Watson, of course – love the blog."

Sherlock makes a face. "That's quite all right, Sergeant. How soon can we view the scenes and the bodies?"

"First thing in the morning. I tried to get you in tonight to see the bodies, but the morgue clams up tighter than an accountant's arsehole when it comes to strangers, especially after hours."

"I see." John has to laugh at Sherlock's reaction to the crude metaphor. "Well, thank you, Sergeant. Has there been any new information since I was updated?"

The door behind them swings open. "Mike, I'm heading off – oh, Sherlock, you're here."

"Constable Hutchinson." Sherlock shoots the woman a genuine smile, which she returns. "How are you?"

John's still not quite used to the way Janine Hutchinson seems to be the exception to all of Sherlock's precedents, the way he makes smalltalk with her, makes a concerted effort to be nice. He thinks, sometimes, that he does it to spite Anderson, so that when England's forensics experts gather together and Anderson makes a scathing comment, Sherlock will have someone on his side. For a while he'd thought he was imagining it, but Lestrade had been standing in on one of Hutchinson's crime scenes once, and he'd noticed it, too.

"Why can't he treat _my_ forensics expert like that?" the DI had complained to John.

Sherlock had heard, of course, and had turned back to them with a sneer firmly fixed in place. "Because _your_ forensics expert is an incompetent idiot," he'd snapped. "At least Constable Hutchinson knows the difference between a real fingerprint and a plant."

He thinks back to this afternoon, with Sherlock's display of insecurity, and wonders if the reason he hates Anderson so much has anything to do with the way the forensic examiner treated _him_ the first time they met, rather than the other way around. _Next time Anderson insults him_, John resolves to himself, _I will punch him._

They're walking back to the hotel at around seven-thirty when John hears someone calling out his name. He gets a strange sense of déjà-vu as he turns around to a face he doesn't recognise. "John Watson," the woman says happily. "Well, I never."

He smiles, waits as long as he politely can in case her name comes back to him, then gives up. "No, sorry, it's gone," he apologises.

"Hannah," she laughs. "Hannah Murray – it's been years since I've seen you, how are you?"

_Hannah Murray_. She looks a lot older than he remembers her, but then, it's been more than ten years. "Oh, Hannah! I'm great, how are you? How's Bill?" Hannah's husband Bill had been a friend of John's through high-school, and they'd joined the army together. Bill he saw often, but he hadn't seen Hannah since they'd left for Afghanistan. "This is my friend Sherlock," he introduces, remembering his manners. "Hannah and I went to high school together. Before she married my best friend."

Sherlock obligingly shakes hands with her, smiling politely. "Congratulations on the contract," he says sweetly. She blinks.

"Oh, you're Sherlock Holmes, aren't you? Bill's always telling me about John Watson's new flatmate who's a genius – would you two like to join us for dinner? We've got a bit of a group together – Jack Saunders will be there, John."

Jack Saunders had also been in Afghanistan, and John's heart leaps at the chance to see them again. He looks hesitantly at Sherlock; dinner with a group of John's army friends must be right at the bottom of Sherlock's to-do list, right next to _clean the flat._ But the consulting detective forces a smile that looks more like a grimace and shrugs. _If you want to, John._ His heart melts a little.

"Where are you going?" he asks. If it's a pub, he decides, he won't subject Sherlock to what must be akin to torture.

Hannah smiles in delight. "The teppanyaki restaurant on the Parade," she says. "It'd be so nice if you could come. What a stroke of luck, running into you on the street – are you two on holiday?"

"We're working," Sherlock explains.

_Teppanyaki,_ John thinks, a smirk forming on his face as he regards his flatmate. "Yeah, we'll come," he says happily. "If it's no trouble, thanks, Hannah."


	9. All Colours of the Rainbow

**A/N: Here I have attempted to write from Sherlock's POV, which is notoriously difficult in this fandom, and therefore some feedback on how I've done – how in-character he is, style, voice etc – would be very much appreciated. If you _like_ my Sherlock, you'll probably like my story _Non Dimenticar_, which is almost finished and is entirely from Sherlock's POV. Oh – there is also one f-bomb in here. It's an army get-together, they happen. Thanks so much for all the favourites, alerts, and especially reviews last chapter!**

**DISCLAIMER: The Swedish folk-story is completely fictional, and I intend no offence by it. Also, I've been watching far too much _Criminal Minds_, and I get the feeling that has rubbed off on my crime-scene.**

**-for you**

* * *

><p>This isn't really where I'd imagined I'd be tonight, in a teppanyaki restaurant surrounded by drunk ex-military men and their giggly, chatty spouses.<p>

I _had_ planned to take John out for dinner, but this certainly wouldn't be my restaurant of choice, and the company leaves a lot to be desired.

John's enjoying himself, at least, although he's almost as inebriated as the rest of them. They haven't even started cooking yet, and John's had two pints of something unidentifiable that the wiry redhead seated next to him kept slapping down in front of us.

The waitress – theatrically dressed in a formal Japanese kimono – returns with an enormous plate of rice and does another drinks round.

It's interesting to see how John's behaviour has changed around these people. We walked into the restaurant and the redhead – Bill, he introduced himself as – ran up and slapped him on the back. Immediately, his shoulders rolled back, he locked his knees straight to stand up taller and he smiled differently. "Bill," he greeted heartily. "This is my… Sherlock."

I tried not to make a face. _My Sherlock._ I don't _belong_ to him. Bill, likewise, guffawed. "Your Sherlock, eh? Well, it's nice to finally meet the famed consulting detective!"

I forced a smile when I shook his hand, still thinking about John. He's been acting funny for weeks now, ever since that case with the missing racehorse. I know what it's about, of course. I overheard him talking to Lestrade after we found the cigar ash in the miner case.

_I will steal his heart, whether he likes it or not._

I don't know what he thinks he's doing – one minute he's forcing me to eat, sleep, be nice to people, make tea for both of us, and the next he's telling me to sit down while he does everything and complimenting me and being sugary-sweet and too nice. I probably shouldn't feel this way, but it's become like a game, to guess what mood John will be in each morning and try to pre-empt it. It's interesting that I've been wrong almost every time – does he watch _me, _and that's how he determines how he'll act for the day?

Maybe I just irritated him this morning, and that's why he pulled out the _World's Only Consulting Detective_ quip. Or maybe I'm just on edge around him, and that's why I thought I heard that faint note of bitterness in his voice.

I know I'm something special to a lot of people. People I've helped, people I _do_ help. Since John's blog became popular, too, people – teenaged girls, mostly – have expressed their admiration in the street, often drawing attention to us when we'd rather remain unobserved. I'm special to them, in some strange perverted way. I'm something special to Lestrade, to Angelo, probably even to Mycroft. But I don't think I've _ever_ been something special to John.

I've always been some_one_ special. He's never tried to objectify me like everyone else does. It's when he calls me his 'best friend' that I feel… I never had a best friend. I didn't imagine it would feel quite like this. Knowing he doesn't just care about me because of what I do, or what I _represent_, but because of who I am.

I can put up with it when other people treat me like a trick pony at a circus, because they do it all the time. But John's never done it before, and it smarted a little bit.

And yet he turned to me after Bill marched off towards the table and said, "If you need to leave, if they're too much for you, just say and we'll go, all right?"

I just smiled at him. They've been too much for me since before we sat down, but John's enjoying himself, so I won't say anything until I actually can't breathe.

"Sherlock," Bill booms wryly. Wry seems to be his default setting, and I have yet to hear him branch out. "What can we get you to drink? You haven't touched anything yet."

I try to defer. "Oh, I don't –"

"Nonsense! Just one! It's not like you've got to drive – you can walk _everywhere _in Brighton!" The others titter a bit; I smile tightly, accepting the joke.

So I roll my eyes and try to thank him graciously. "Do you have _Kirin__?_" I ask the waitress. She nods quickly and bustles away.

I notice everyone else staring at me. "What's that?" John asks with interest.

"It's… lager," I tell them, nonplussed. They come to a Japanese restaurant and they're still drinking Carlsberg? "It's a Japanese lager."

After this I manage to avoid conversation for a bit; eventually, though, Bill's attention lands back on me. "So, Sherlock," he repeats; I quirk an eyebrow politely. "What's the case you and John are investigating here?"

"Oh, it's hardly dinner-table conversation." I'd gladly tell them about it, but John says it's not polite to talk about serial killers and MOs while everyone's quaffing miso soup.

The chef arrived about ten minutes ago, quietly tipping the rice onto the hot-plate and tossing it around with his spatula. Everyone else ignores him, but when he looks my way I give him a tight smile. This is probably why he chooses me as his first victim and I will never make eye contact with a chef again.

"Catch!" he says suddenly, tossing a small bowl in my direction. Out of sheer luck, I catch it, and John's army friends snicker and whoop. Most of them encounter varying degrees of less success than I had due to their lack of sobriety; John, though, straightens up and catches it one-handed. The waitress ducks Bill's bowl as it soars past his ear and gently sets down the _Kirin_ beside me.

The next thing he throws is raw eggs; by the time he's throwing rice dumplings I've had three glasses of _Kirin_ and am starting to feel it a little bit. I think I might even be enjoying myself; the food is incredible, although that might have something to do with the fact that besides the bit of toast John forced down my throat this morning I haven't eaten since the last time he tried to force me, which was at least two days ago.

Nicole, the woman on my other side, turns to me while her husband wipes the smear of grease from where he failed to catch the piece of fried egg in his mouth. "So how long have you and John been together?" she asks conversationally.

I sneak a sideways glance at John, deep in some anecdotal conversation with Bill, and wonder what he'd want me to say. The whole world thinks we're together – some _Sun_ reporter named Kitty Riley even printed what I said to Alice St. Claire a few days ago.

"John moved in as my flatmate about sixteen months ago," I tell her, hoping that will be enough.

It's not. "Oh, that's nice," she says, taking a sip of her Chardonnay. By the tightness in her lips as she swallows, it's not very nice. "And when did you…"

The ellipses are weighted, as though I should know exactly what's supposed to come after them. I assume she means _when did we start shagging_. I look at him again, but he's still not listening, so he doesn't receive my silent plea for help. "Not long," I say eventually. He said he didn't mind, and it's easier than explaining. "It's a new development, we're not really sure it's working."

"Well, you do look marvellously happy together," she says, looking from me to his back. "I remember when Jack and I first got together. That was before the army, of course… don't let him go back, Sherlock," she says seriously.

I try to smile. "I won't." I'm not lying. "I don't know if I could live without him now."

She beams. "A toast!" she calls out suddenly, stopping everyone else's conversation flat, holding out her wineglass. "To John and Sherlock, for the new change in their relationship. May they be happy for many years."

"John and Sherlock," everyone else murmurs. We look at each other; I give an imperceptible shrug. He grins.

"To the army," Jack Saunders continues, his voice a drunken slur. "Fucking with people's sexuality for centuries."

My glass hits the table and I only just catch it before the _Kirin_ spills out over the hotplate. Sexuality seems to be the one thing he's touchy about (besides body-parts where there's food ). Even _I _couldn't hazard a guess at how many times he's snapped _I'm not gay_ at the assembled forces of Scotland Yard. John, however, chuckles and holds his Carlsberg high. "The army," he declares, grinning at me.

We stare at each other until the chef creates a diversion by setting the tower of onion-slices he's created on fire.

* * *

><p>By the time we leave the restaurant, my head is buzzing in a vaguely less-than-pleasant manner and I have the distinct feeling that John's gripping my arm not out of a display of the affection that his friends now expect us to show, but purely for physical support so he doesn't fall over.<p>

Five minutes in the fresh air calms him down enormously. "God, I'm sorry," he says finally. "I didn't mean to get quite this drunk, I know you don't like it. They're just…"

"Your friends are very insistent," I concur soothingly. "I think you did well keeping moderate coherency." He snorts. "And it's probably lucky for you. This way you'll sleep like a rock and won't hear me bumbling about all night."

"Not going to sleep tonight, then?" he asks, yawning widely, not bothering to hide it behind his hand. Irritatingly, my own mouth starts to mimic him, and he laughs as though he was expecting this.

I have to admit, though, the alcohol is making it difficult to think and I didn't sleep last night because I was thinking about this case. "Hmm," I concede, ignoring his self-satisfied little smirk. "Maybe."

In the end, once we've both washed the copious amounts of rice, egg and little bits of chicken out of our clothes and skin, I do strip down to my pants and a t-shirt and climb into the bed beside him. I leave the bedsit light on as he wriggles down between the sheets, the case-notes propped up on my knees. "Would this disturb you?" I remember to ask as he looks up at me sleepily before flicking his own light off.

He shrugs, an adorable little wiggle of his shoulders that echoes down his whole body. "I think I could sleep through a hurricane right now."

"Good."

Even so, I expect it to take more than five minutes before he starts snoring. I also expect the sound to be irritating, the little puffs and hums of breath disturbing my quiet; instead, my brain slows gently to sync with his rhythm and actually _quietens_, like the calming of music played to a metronome.

Like this, it only takes me five minutes before I've dissected everything it's possible to gain from Hutchinson's notes, and my eyelids feel heavy, my stomach full and content, so I sigh and slide down the headboard until I'm lying down beside John. He fell asleep facing me, and I can feel the tiny breeze of his toothpaste-scented breath stirring against my pores. I wonder if John would let me think beside him while he sleeps more often.

* * *

><p>The next day is windy and clouded, and standing on the beach beside the space where Elle Walker's body still lies – I wonder if Hutchinson actually <em>bribed<em> the rest of the CSI unit to leave her there for me – is thoroughly unpleasant, rogue grains of sand whipping along the shingle and insinuating itself in my clothes, up my nose and between my teeth, my eyes watering from the wind.

There's not much there. "Anything?" Diston asks after I've stared at the cadaver for five minutes, my brain whirring, almost wishing John would snore again. Maybe I should get him to hum or whistle. It'd be so much more convenient if I were ever allowed to bring my Stradivarius to a crime-scene and pace my thoughts that way.

I shake my head slowly. "Aside from the obvious. The setting, the clothing, the method of death. She suffered from mild jaundice, too, so even her skin tone was slightly yellow. The first body in the meat-packers, the second in the flower-bed; he's obviously following some kind of colour progression." If we can figure out what it is, at the very least we'll be able to predict his next dump site.

"What, so we'll find the next body in a meadow somewhere?"

I turn to look at John, who's staring at the body with adorable concentration. _How could he…_ When I don't reply, he looks up at me sheepishly. "Why do you say meadow?" I ask him.

He blinks a few times, as though the answer is glaringly obvious. I turn back to the body, scanning it hastily – what could have been in such plain sight that _I_ missed it when even _John_ can see it? "Well… it's the rainbow, isn't it? Murder by colours, the colours of the rainbow. Meadow, lots of green grass."

"But why _green_? Why does it have to be green next, why couldn't it be… I don't know, pink?"

Now I'm starting to feel stupid, the way he's staring at me in thorough confusion. "Sherlock, pink isn't…" Then his face clears and we realise at the same time. This is one of those things again, isn't it? Like the solar system, completely irrelevant data that ordinary people can't block out. "Oh, of course. They probably covered the rainbow in the same lesson as the solar system. Pink isn't in the rainbow, and there's an order – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet."

My brain jumps into action like bunny-hopping a car. _They teach the rainbow at primary school. So his reasons for this has something to do with his childhood – the victims are probably chosen to represent his mother. Is there some sort of fairytale or song they teach children involving the rainbow that could lead him to do this? _I whip out my phone – there's no signal – and wander around frantically until I find a pocket of service with which to access the internet and find an old Swedish folk-story about a boy whose mother was kidnapped by the sun – the boy had to climb the tiers of the rainbow, at each colour confronted with 'trials' to try and scare him away, to rescue his mother.

"Diston," I bark quickly. "Were there any Swedish women reported missing in the last year?"

He looks up at me. "Um, I don't know off the top of my head – Gloria Heian went missing in February, I remember her son reported it, he was distraught. They'd lived in England all their lives, but I think Gloria's mother migrated from Sweden or Norway or something like that. Why?"

"Hutchinson, you can clear the scene now," I call over my shoulder, smirking. _That was easier than I thought. _"The man you're looking for is Gloria Heian's son. If you check the records, I'm betting you'll find that these women all look similar to her – he never got over her going missing and became obsessed with a story she used to tell him about the rainbow where the boy's mother was kidnapped. Off you pop and arrest him, Sergeant, and please don't hesitate to think for yourself next time."

I spot John rolling his eyes at Diston in my peripheral vision. I don't know why he always insists on my being polite to the MET; they don't deserve it. And half of them are too thick to realise I'm insulting them anyway. The Sergeant, though, shouts a 'thank-you' back to us as he and two other officers sprint back up the beach. Hutchinson smiles at me as the rest of the body-suited CSIs shake out their body-bags. Eventually, John and I stand by ourselves towards the back of the scene, watching everyone else get on with it. He grins at me wryly and gestures for me to walk down the beach with him.

"You have to admit it," he says factually a few minutes later. I cringe. I knew he'd do this, and I hate these kinds of conversations. "You never really know what pieces of random, irrelevant information you might need."

I suppose a part of me _does_ have to admit that this is true, especially since this is the second time my knowledge has failed me where John's was perfectly adequate for the situation. "That's why I have you, isn't it?" I reply, not looking at him. His step falters, but he doesn't stop. He's touched – why? I didn't tell him anything he didn't already know, and I wouldn't consider what I just said to be exactly complimentary – but not surprised.

"What if one day you don't have me?" he asks. I do stop this time, turning to look at him as he stops too. I think I've come to terms now with the fact that thinking about not having John around makes my heart squeeze uncomfortably and a feeling like indigestion occur in my chest.

I swallow and try to look nonchalant, confident. "Is that likely to happen, John?" I try to make it sound rhetorical, but a part of me really wants him to answer. _Does_ he think he'll ever leave me?

He chuckles. "No, probably not – not if I have any say in the matter."

We smile at each other for a moment, and then he gestures idly out at the beach in front of us. "Walk with me along the beach, Mr Holmes," he suggests, holding out an arm.

I can't help the smirk at his formal, slightly archaic, almost _courting_ style of address, and loop my arm over his like a Victorian lady, speaking in falsetto. "Of course, Doctor Watson."


	10. Footprints in the Sand

John slows to a stop and looks back at the trail of their footprints down the beach together, side by side, warm and happy to have Sherlock here with him. He sighs. "Do you ever look back at your life like this? You know, see it laid out behind you like footprints in the sand?"

Sherlock casts a disparaging look backwards. "Why would I? Footprints in the sand only last until the tide comes in, and then they get washed away and forgotten about." He's picked up a piece of driftwood along the way, and is holding it out in front of him like a wizard with a staff. John snorts, then frowns.

"Not us, Gandalf. You, at least, people will remember."

Grey eyes turn on him, Sherlock's caterpillar eyebrows contracted above them. "It's not fair," he says softly. "It should be you. Your footprint trail is far more impressive than mine."

"How so?" John asks, surprised. He's never seen it like that; Sherlock's very existence is a blaze of glory and energy and intelligence, and his own… well, it's _his_. He's never looked at it as impressive before.

Sherlock hitches the staff up in his hands and walks a few metres back down the beach. "Here," he begins, drawing a line across John's footprint path. "You were born. You had a childhood full of love. Your parents loved you and cared about you. You and Harry hated each other, but it was _fun_ to hate her, and even though you were scared of her sometimes you still knew that if it was serious, she'd support you." He draws a line beside the next footprint, shooting upwards like a tree-branch. "You had a good time at school. Well-liked, good grades. Head boy in your last year of college. Then you joined the military." Another line, rocketing up towards where John still stands. "You joined because they'd pay your way through medical school, didn't think you'd actually be called to serve, but you didn't think you'd mind if you were; you're strong, and you love adventure and excitement. You completed your doctorate with good grades and got a job as a surgeon, where you saved lives every day. Hundreds of people are indebted to you, are alive because of you. Already, John, you'd made a mark."

The first two-thirds of Sherlock's makeshift timeline look like a demented deciduous tree in winter. It doesn't look too glorious to John; he _remembers_ the things Sherlock's talking about, and none of them were anything like as noble as Sherlock seems to be trying to convey.

"Then you get called to Afghanistan," Sherlock continues, his voice softening, losing its excited quality as he looks up at John again. "There's sacrifice, and pain. You see things, lose things, that you never wanted to. There are horrible things." The line this time goes right through the footprints, and John understands: this is another chapter of life. This is where he grew up, finally. "But you're a doctor. You're strong, and brave, and selfless. People die, but some people don't because you save them. John, you've done such amazing things. How many people out there are alive because _you saved them_? You have no idea, because there are so many. I could never have the strength to do that."

The consulting detective draws in a shaky breath as though he'd got sidetracked, and draws another line through the timeline. "Then you get shot," he says matter-of-factly. "That's not nice, and it hurts like hell, but really it's lucky for you, isn't it? It could have been a lot worse. And then you get sent home. You meet me, move in with me. You like it here; it's exciting, it sates your thirst for excitement and adrenaline. And you're still saving people. You've saved me more than once."

Sherlock stills, walking the last few steps to join him again. "Your life, John," he says quietly. "It's been worth something."

John frowns, trying to repress the unbelievably strong urge to hold and squeeze. "So has yours," he protests. The detective makes a face.

"Mine?" he repeats briskly, stalking back to the beginning of John's line, this time focussing on his own footprints. He draws an identical line. "I was born. It was an accident, and my parents regretted it straight away. Mycroft was the perfect one, they didn't need me – I was the unruly child that drew on the walls and blew up the stove in the kitchen. Mycroft and I hated each other, too, but it wasn't like you and Harry; he would have sold my soul if it helped him, especially when he decided he wanted to go into politics." He stills briefly, then draws the first sharp, spiky branch. "Then when I was eleven, he left home, leaving me to the mercy of my father. Sure, Mycroft and I hated each other, but we always tried to help each other to avoid my father because we wanted help ourselves. After Mycroft left there was no-one to stop him. Mother didn't care. He taught me the violin, and every time I played a note wrong or fumbled a vibrato he beat me until I got it right. When I was fifteen, I ran away."

Another line scratches into the sand with bitter vehemence. Sherlock's face is emotionless, intent on its task. John wants to reach out and comfort him; he knew Sherlock's childhood was bad, but he never wanted to ask. "Mycroft grudgingly lent me money to rent a flat, because he knew Mother would be upset if I died on the street. The flat was awful. It smelt of urine and the other people in the building were people I never wanted to be like. But it was hard to live in a place like that and not be corrupted a little bit; I started shooting cocaine and chain-smoking." Sherlock savagely stabs out another line in the sand. "From there it's boring. Drugs, depression, hopelessness."

Sherlock breathes in and draws a thick line across his foot-path. New chapter. "And then someone was murdered in the old building I bought cocaine from and Lestrade turned up to investigate. They were doing it wrong. I told them, and Lestrade arrested me for cocaine possession." He sighs. More lines stretch towards John as though he is the sun, the food, the life-blood. He starts to feel uneasy. "Mycroft bailed me out. He was furious, but only because Mother was distraught. I always thought it was funny –she'd never cared about me before. I went to Lestrade to help me through withdrawal because I didn't have anyone else, and he gave me enough help to set up my business. Started calling me to help him instead of glaring at me when I turned up uninvited.

"Then my business started doing better. I met Mrs Hudson. She… cared. I hardly knew her, and she force-fed me homemade muffins until I threw up and collapsed on her sofa." Sherlock's face has dropped its carefully closed expression in favour of a warm smile. "We came back to London together. I was carefully building myself a proper family, a proper _life. _But it was still… boring. Mundane. I still craved the cocaine, sometimes, just for something to do. I met Molly, and then experimenting became a thousand times easier and more profitable."

This last line in the sand has brought him all the way to the end of the footprints. John thinks he'll carry on, keep walking to create more. Instead, Sherlock draws a long, final-looking line at the end of the footprints and pauses, looking at it. "Then I met you."

John waits a long time for him to elaborate, but after a few minutes that stretch out like years, he drops the stick in the sand and walks away.

He doesn't make it very far before he stops, looking back and frowning at John, wondering why he isn't following. John's still staring after him, nonplussed. "And then what?" John asks, scrambling to catch up. "And then you met me what?"

Sherlock blinks. "And then I met you, and… I don't know what else you want me to say, John." He sounds confused, as though the answer should be obvious. John recognises the Face that accompanies the Voice and tries not to get annoyed. "Then I met you, and my life stopped being a simple progression of events. Then I met you, and my life… exploded. Then I met you, and I had better things to do than quantify my life as a series of footprints and lines in the sand."

John tries to swallow, but suddenly finds it just as hard as the detective seems to be finding the next few words he wants to say. "I… I know I don't show it, John, but I do care for you."

He's not quite sure what his heart is doing right now, actually it feels like his heart hasn't quite made that decision yet either; does it want to melt or jump into his throat and attack his uvula? He tries swallowing again, with little success. "I know that," he says firmly, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "Of _course_ I know that – you don't have to say it, or buy chocolates or thank-you cards for me to know you care. It's just who you are, and I know you well enough by now to understand how you say _thank you_ and _I care about you._" Sherlock smiles half-heartedly, so John claps him violently on the back. "And I think you're forgetting things in your little life-line there, Sherlock," he admonishes, turning back to it. "What about all the lives _you_'ve saved? Angelo. Mrs Hudson – she told me about her husband's plans to kill her. Sarah. Those people Moriarty strapped to bombs. Irene Adler – yes, I know about that. Henry Knight. Doctor Mortimer. That banker. Me, and me, and me, over and over again – I owe my life to you a thousand times, Sherlock."

"You're exaggerating."

"A little bit. But that's not the point."

Sherlock gives him one of those rare, indulgent smiles, the ones he's never seen him give anyone else. They walk on in silence until they reach the ridge over which the crime-scene can still be seen; John stares down at it, watching Hutchinson direct people around wearing white body-suits and looking like sperm in some kind of television advert.

"Funny thing, isn't it?" Sherlock says suddenly, his gaze directed resolutely out to sea.

"Hmm?"

The detective casts a quick glance back at him before redirecting his eyes back to where they came from. "Love." He says the word without emotion; no trace of disgust or ridicule, but none of reverence or even acceptance either. "It makes people do such awful things."

John suddenly wonders if there was someone, once, some cold older man or woman who broke a young Sherlock's heart. "Have you ever done it before?" he asks.

The consulting detective turns his head to stare at John in an absent manner. "No," he says finally. "I've seen what it does, why would anyone willingly subject themselves to that?" John takes the moment to marvel in the things Sherlock doesn't know. "I imagine it hurts."

It makes a stab of sadness catch at John's heart that Sherlock really has no idea. "Sometimes," he agrees. "But most of the time it feels like…" he pauses to consider, to give Sherlock the most honest approximation. "It's what I always imagined flying would feel like. It's exciting, there's adrenaline, and it's… it makes you feel alive."

There is silence for a few moments as the consultant considers this. "How many times have you been in love, John?"

The doctor replies instantly. "Three. Although, the first one was when I was a teenager, so I'm not really sure it counts." Sherlock doesn't say anything to this, and so John finds himself staring out at the sea and thinking how _perfect_ this is, him and Sherlock on a beach, barefoot with their shoes dangling from their fingers, loose and totally comfortable with each other. He recognises that it's clichéd, but he cannot think of any other place in the world he would rather be.

"I've had fun," he muses aloud. "I have actually enjoyed myself, here in bloody _Brighton_." He slows down, steeling himself for what he suddenly knows he's about to do. Sherlock stops too. John turns to look at him, and the detective smiles lazily back. "Here in Brighton, with you."

He breathes deeply, then leans forward on tip-toe until he can see the blush rise on Sherlock's cheek, see the rapid fluttering of the pulse-point on his neck galloping in time with John's own. _Elevated heart-rate. Quickened breathing. Flushed face. _John figuratively shakes himself, takes the plunge, and presses his lips to Sherlock's.

The lanky detective stutters in fright and steps back, breaking the contact abruptly. "John!"

John opens his eyes, breathing hard, suddenly feeling ill. This isn't how that was supposed to go. "Did I do something wrong?" he asks carefully. Sherlock's eyes are wide with something akin to terror, but his pupils are blown and he raises a pale hand to touch his lips as he stumbles a few more steps back.

"John, I don't… I didn't… I don't want…" Were it any other situation, John would be proud of managing to bring Sherlock to this level of incoherence, but right now he feels like someone just pulled a rug out from under his feet. Sherlock had _wanted_ him to kiss him, he could see it – all of the detective's own identifiers were there. "I, um… I'm flattered that you want me like that, John, really," Sherlock finishes quickly. "But I don't feel the same. I'm sorry."

"Yes, you do," John affirms quietly. Sherlock stops in his tracks and stares. "Did you think I hadn't noticed? I'm not stupid. Your pulse is elevated, you're breathing faster, you're going red, and your pupils are dilated." John tries to take a step forward, but Sherlock steps back, holding the distance between them, looking horrified. "Sherlock, please," he says desperately. "It's all right, I won't let you go. You trust me, don't you? What's the worst that could happen?"

Sherlock meets his eyes for a moment, and in them John sees fear and something pure, childish and naïve. Then the detective clears his throat and breaks the contact. "You're mistaken, John," he says shortly. "I don't want to pursue that kind of relationship with you, and I'd appreciate it if you respected that wish and maintained a reasonable distance between us. Our train leaves in an hour, we should get back to the hotel."

And he shrugs his shoulders a bit, awkwardly, and starts back towards the road.


	11. Steal My Heart

The train ride back to London is awful and awkward and quiet.

John wants to initiate _some_ kind of conversation, even if they don't acknowledge what just happened, but Sherlock stares resolutely out of the window, giving off such a strong air of _leave me alone_ that John almost wants to leave the carriage completely.

Well, that definitely wasn't the outcome he was looking for.

He's still a bit confused, actually. He ran through all the indicators that Sherlock's explained to him a million times – _Sherlock's own indicators_ – and the consulting detective was displaying all of them. After John had kissed him, his pupils dilated, his cheeks flushed, his breath quickened and he wasn't given the chance to get close enough again but he's willing to bet his heart-rate elevated too.

Sherlock _wanted_ it. And John's been watching him flirting and casting subtle glances when he thinks he's not watching, and Sherlock's wanted it for a while. He _knows_ he has. So why did he turn him away?

It runs on a perverted loop through his head like a scratched record. _Maybe he's scared it'll ruin our friendship, or our working relationship – the work means everything to him, right? Maybe it's just that. Or maybe he's just scared of it – everyone keeps implying that he's a virgin. What if it's true and I was just going too fast? But then why didn't he _tell_ me? If he wanted it but he was scared, he would have told me. But he _did_ want it, I know he did._

The silence is _so_ uncomfortable. He tries to break it a few times, but Sherlock either ignores him outright or dismisses him with one short, irritable sentence. John can't help but think he might have ruined this forever.

Sherlock pointedly avoids looking at him or getting too close to him as they unload their bags from the train; he resumes his staring out the window in the cab and leaves John to attempt to persuade the extraordinarily garrulous cabbie that this isn't really the time to complain about everything from David Cameron to West Ham Football Club to the weather and try to make inane conversation.

Neither of them is in a particularly good mood by the time they get inside. John just wants to get to his room, slam the door so hard something shatters and scream as loud as he can to relieve some of the tension bubbling under his skin. And then maybe sit down somewhere away from Sherlock and think about where to go from here.

He knows he should probably apologise. He's not sure where he went wrong in his deductions, what he failed to see, but there must have been something and it was almost certainly his fault. Even if Sherlock turns out not to be prepared to give him a chance in a romantic way, he refuses to acknowledge that this might have destroyed their _friendship_ as well.

The detective throws his overnight bag and his coat over the back of his sofa and gets ready to sweep straight into his room and slam the door; John sees this coming and calls out to stop him.

On second thoughts, he probably should have given them both a bit of time to cool off first. But he's called out now, and Sherlock has stopped and turned around, his angular face carefully arranged in a bored expression, and it would feel pathetic and weak to finish with 'nothing'.

"I'm sorry," he says instead. "For before."

Sherlock doesn't react in the slightest; John nervously watches the steady up-and-down of his exposed collarbone as he breathes. "It's fine," he says finally. The tone of the words is so careful and rehearsed that he doesn't believe it, knows that whatever he's done to hurt Sherlock it's somehow more than just a gentle kiss he didn't want. "Just as long as it doesn't happen again."

"So…" John tries tentatively, still carefully watching Sherlock's face for any reaction. "We're okay, then? You and me?"

His flatmate shrugs in a pretty good attempt at carelessness. "Sure." John feels like throwing his arms up in frustration; he doesn't understand what he's _done_. Can't Sherlock at least have the decency to explain _why_ he's so upset, instead of pretending so badly that he isn't?

"Bollocks, Sherlock, come on. I'm not stupid. Why are you so upset about this? It was a misunderstanding, I apologised, it won't happen again and I don't understand why you're giving me the cold shoulder now!" The consulting detective frowns slightly, his arms rising as if to cross in front of his chest and then just clutching there. John stares him down in challenge.

Sherlock sighs stiffly. "I was just caught by surprise, John. We'll be fine once I've had a chance to think it over and move past it."

John could hold up a millimetre between two fingers to illustrate just how close he is to screaming in frustration. "Or we could _not_ move past it, when you've _thought over it_ and realised that I'm right and you do want it."

"I can assure you with all confidence that that isn't the conclusion I'll reach," Sherlock deflects.

"Why the hell not?" he presses. "Your body enjoyed it. It's good to let your body take over every now and then. Like eating and sleeping." Sherlock's face contorts into an expression of distaste and he takes a breath to say _dull _or _boring_, but John beats him to it. "Which may be dull and boring but they're _necessary_. You have to give your brain a break every once in a while, or it gets overwhelming, you _know_ that. This is a way to do it that doesn't involve blowing anything up or contaminating food sources." Sherlock shakes his head, but John's on a roll, with all his frustrations suddenly finding eloquent ways out of his mouth and the certainty that Sherlock _would_ want this, if only he'll just relax and _try_ it, so he steps forward. "I can show you, Sherlock. Just relax and let me."

The detective takes a step back to match John's step forward. "No. John, stop."

John doesn't, because Sherlock _wants_ this and he has to _show him_ what it's like, how he doesn't have to worry. "Please, Sherlock," he says, starting forwards again, so focussed he doesn't notice the fact that Sherlock's still heading backwards until he reaches the wall and can't go any further. "Please just trust me, it's all right. I've got you, but you just have to let go."

Finally, Sherlock's back hits the wall and John steps forward triumphantly, angling his head down to press his lips to his flatmate's and inching closer. "_Let me…_"

"John," Sherlock murmurs, turning his head away to stare fixedly at something on the floor to their left, "John, please!"

He stops. Sherlock certainly doesn't _sound_ like he wants this. He sounds desperate and apologetic, and afraid. Sherlock Holmes is afraid – of _him_.

"Oh, God," he says, taking a step back; bile rises in his throat, choking the beats and urgings of his heart. "Oh, Sherlock, I'm so sorry."

The detective doesn't relax, standing pressed as close to the wall as possible, his eyes shut so tightly the lids are almost white, his fists clenched. John's heart falls right out of his mouth and hits the floor. "I'm sorry. I can't believe I… I'm really, really sorry. I don't want to force you into anything."

Slowly, Sherlock starts to unfold his body, peeling himself off the wall, but he still doesn't relax his posture. Disgusted, John moves away and sits down at the kitchen table. "I don't understand," he says, his head in his hand. "Why won't you – don't you trust me? You must know I won't hurt you."

Sherlock swallows, carefully not looking at him. "John, I… I just don't want… I _don't want _this."

He can't resist the jab. "Who are you trying to convince?" he asks quietly. Sherlock stares, horrified, a glimmer of hurt welling up in his green-grey eyes.

"Well, _I'm_ not the one backing someone into a corner and trying to force myself on them, am I?" His voice is high, brittle, almost hysterical. _God, I really scared him, didn't I? Shit. _

The picture flashes in front of his eyes again: Sherlock, eyes shut tight, face contorted in panic as John stalked closer. "I'm sorry." He thinks about making tea, then has to bite back a bitter laugh. _In times of great stress, John Watson makes tea._ "But you… you _do_ want this. You've deduced attraction in front of me a million times, Sherlock. I know it when I see it. You _do_ want me."

The detective bites his bottom lip minutely, so John takes it as a good sign and presses on. "If it's… if you don't want this _yet,_ because you're not ready, or because you think it'll ruin what we already have, or what _you_ already have, what you've built for yourself, then for God's sake _tell_ me. We're both adults, Sherlock, we can talk about this. But please, don't try to tell me you _just don't want it_ when I know it's not true."

"John," Sherlock says, his fists clenching and unclenching in the rhythm of one of Paganini's fastest. "I'm sorry. I really am. But please, it _is_ true." His voice turns hard and too-loud, and John flinches. "I don't want you like this_. Please_ stop trying."

Maybe if he'd been less tired and disappointed and frustrated, that would be that, would _have been_ that a long time ago. But he's exhausted, and he doesn't understand. "Don't lie to me, Sherlock, please!" he snaps, expertly coiling the tension in the room like a snake in the grass. "Why won't you let me have this?"

Sherlock lets out a growl of frustration, that almost sounds like his usual _do I have to explain everything, John _growl. "Because I _don't want it!_" he snaps back.

"_Why not?_" John yells finally, the tension in the room snapping, propelling both of them onto their feet, facing each other with flushed faces and clenched fists –

"Because I _can't let you steal my heart!"_ Sherlock screams. John involuntarily takes a step back at the sound, shrill and desperate. The consulting detective is shaking with it, like the explanation is a fever and he's sweating it out; gradually, the shaking stills until John finds himself faced with a torrent of long-suppressed rage.

"Who do you think you _are_, John? You think I couldn't survive without you forcing me to eat and sleep and say thank-you when I don't need or want to? You think I don't _know_ my body's limits? I survived for thirty-four years before I met you, John, and I don't need you to take care of me, to force me to do these things that I don't usually do for a _reason, _because I don't like them. And now you want me to give you _everything_, to love you and kiss you and… I never wanted that, never _needed_ that. What makes you think I'd give that to you? After you've taken control of my body and my schedule now you want to take my "heart" as well?"

The detective spits out the word 'heart' with such obvious disdain that John cringes. "I know you think I'm childish, John, but you don't have to treat me like a child all the time. This… you're acting like it's a game, like _sport_, like something you can boast to Lestrade about, but it's not a game for _me_. It's a part of who I am, and I can't let you take it. So just _leave me alone_."

John stands there, leaning against the kitchen table with his mouth open like a catatonic schizophrenic. Has Sherlock been burying this resentment all this time? "Why didn't you tell me?"

Sherlock snorts in amusement. "Would you have listened? You were so focussed on _stealing my heart_ you couldn't see anything else."

"No," John presses. "Before that. About the eating and sleeping. If it was really bothering you that much, you should have said something."

The younger man shrugs. "Were there words I could have used that would have made you see how much I hate it when you do that? Or would you have just kept on telling me I was being childish and spoon-feeding me, tucking me into bed at night and elbowing me when I 'forget' my manners? Controlling me like I don't know how to live by myself? John, even my _mother_ wasn't as controlling as you are."

Each word slaps him in the face; it's like being tied to the back of a van galloping down a busy street, face smashing at high speed against the pavement at every turn. _Even my mother wasn't as controlling as you are_. Sherlock _hated_ his mother. "I was just trying to –"

_Help,_ the last word was going to be, but Sherlock knows that too, and they both know it's a fool's excuse. "Don't, John. Just go away."

He knows Sherlock means to his bedroom, or _anywhere_ that isn't two steps away from him, crowding into his personal space and cajoling him like a grumpy toddler. Some of the _pathetic_ things he's said to his friend come back to him, like the time he tried to feed Sherlock a sandwich piece by piece by hand while the detective was hunched over a microscope, speaking in that daft tone parents use on children in an effort to either make him laugh and realise how ridiculous he was being, or eat the sandwich to make him shut up. He'd never even considered that Sherlock might feel so… _oppressed. _

It's crushing, really. He'd thought he was helping; really he'd often felt pretty good about himself after he managed to make Sherlock look after himself properly, felt proud when his friend thanked Lestrade at a crime scene with that pointed _see, John, I'm being polite_ look in his direction. And all that time there had been _this, _this resentment and frustration and dislike building up in Sherlock.

"Okay," he says. Sherlock leans back against the wall, looking exhausted, as John grabs his phone and his coat and his wallet and leaves the flat, letting out the tears as soon as the door closes behind him.


	12. I Didn't

It takes me a moment to register the fact that John's left the flat and that my legs are begging me to sit down.

I suppose really I shouldn't be surprised. John's an affective person. I should have known from all the times I've seen him attempt to interact with women that he was going to eventually try this. I simply thought that I would mean something different to him in that capacity than all those women; he only wanted them to have someone to perform coitus with, whereas we already have more than that, and I had assumed that he would think more about what he was doing – I don't believe I was stupid to think that he would listen to me when I said 'no'.

Even when my legs give up on me and manoeuvre me to the sofa, my eyes refuse to leave the door. I'm still not quite sure what just happened, or how I'm supposed to react. I suppose that's rather ironic; generally John's brain ticks along so slowly I'm not quite sure how he manages to live at all, and yet today he moved so fast I couldn't keep up and I've been right royally left behind.

I wasn't bluffing when I told him I knew what he was doing. I just didn't think, after three weeks of little subtle things, that he would move quite so fast. John usually likes talking things out; I thought I would at least have some warning before he tried full-on physical affection.

No, that's a lie. I knew he'd do this, and I didn't bother to prepare myself because I thought I could handle it – at the very least, I thought he'd listen when I first said 'no'. What I wasn't expecting was his little display of deductive logic after I turned him away.

Just when I'd discovered how comforting it was to be beside him while he slept and finally managed to express in conversational terms how much I admire him – I suppose it was only natural for him to take that as a sign that he should take things further, especially when he's been almost completely focussed on 'seducing' me for so long.

I should have planned for it, I suppose, come up with a reasonable and logical answer that wasn't just 'I don't want it'. I can't really blame him for not believing that one, but I wasn't expecting him to get so violent and I panicked.

I can't even remember what I said to him, but I remember it wasn't what I meant to say. He'd backed me into a corner, forced me to shrink so far back into myself I felt like a sheep in an abattoir, and then hurled his words at me until I sort of switched off and shouted whatever would make him go away.

_Who do you think you __are__, John? You think I couldn't survive without you forcing me to eat and sleep and say thank-you when I don't need or want to? You think I don't __know__ my body's limits? I survived for thirty-four years before I met you, John, and I don't need you to take care of me, to force me to do these things that I don't usually do for a __reason..._

Did I really say all that? God, no wonder he stormed out. Or did I shout at him to leave?

My head hits the palms of my hands. I didn't _mean_ any of it. Well, the way he always forces me to do these things _does_ irritate me – what does he think I did before I met him? And sometimes the way he does it, tries to get me to eat especially, are so incredibly infantile I'm not sure he realises how insulting they really are. But it's just a part of _John_, and I will very happily put up with it if it's necessary to keep the rest of him.

Why did I do that?

"Yoohoo!" Mrs Hudson's voice comes softly from the door. I don't look up at her, but she comes closer anyway. "Everything all right, dear? I heard shouting."

Unacceptably, I can feel tears well up behind my eyes. I screw them shut to stop anything from happening and turn pointedly away from my landlady, hoping she'll just leave but knowing she won't. I haven't cried since I was fourteen, but I remember the last time quite clearly. Then, as well, I was fine until someone offered me comfort.

The sofa behind me depresses as she sits down and her hand rubs my back through my shirt. "Oh, Sherlock," she says softly.

I will not cry.

My phone goes off from the table. I flinch at the noise, and Mrs Hudson jumps; to cover up her reaction, she giggles sheepishly and then gets up to check it. "You don't mind, dear, do you? It might be John."

I wave my hand airily at her once I'm confident my voice won't sound choked up. "Go ahead."

There's a pause, and then she sighs heavily. "Tell me what happened, Sherlock," she suggests, sitting down beside me again and holding out the phone for me to read.

_I am so sorry. Text me when it's okay for me to come back and apologise properly. John_

He will have gone to the pub around the corner; I wonder where he'll go if I don't text him. Stamford's, probably. Maybe even Lestrade's, the two of them have been rather friendly lately. I just hope he doesn't come back here drunk – John has always been an over-friendly inebriate with little regard for personal space. But he understands the enormity of the situation, at least. I let out my breath and look up at Mrs Hudson. "What happened, dear?"

I don't know how to tell her. She's always sort of slipped hints into the conversation that we should get together; it sounds childish, but I suddenly feel like the entire world is against me. "He just… it just… we… I didn't…"

Then it hits me so suddenly I have no time to hold it back and something that sounds pathetically like a sob rips out of my throat, tears spilling out of my eyes and running down my cheeks. I'm shocked at my body's apparent lack of control. Mrs Hudson, on the other hand, leans closer and yanks me until I land face-first into her bosom. "Oh, love," she comforts, rubbing my shoulder and effectively holding me like an overgrown child. And then, of course, the control I was attempting to reassert over the urge to cry and be comforted dissolves and I find myself sobbing into her velvety dress.

This is ridiculous. I'm thirty-four years old and crying on my landlady's shoulder – or breast, more accurately and perhaps slightly embarrassingly - because my flatmate and best friend tried to kiss me and I shouted at him.

I pull myself together and sit up. "I apologise," I say, standing up to find a tissue for my streaming nose. She pushes me back down and brings the box over herself.

"Am I going to have to guess what happened, or would you really rather not tell me?" she asks as she sits back down, her hand going back around my shoulders. I hold my breath until I can be sure I'm not going to cry again.

"I shouted at him. I didn't mean to, the things I said, I didn't mean them. But he… he tried to kiss me again, and he wasn't listening to me, and I panicked."

Mrs Hudson blinks and her hand pauses in its rubbing of my shoulder. "He tried to kiss you… again?"

I take another tissue and blow my nose again. Crying would be infinitely more dignified if it didn't make your nose run. "We were in Brighton for a case," I start from the beginning. "We were on the beach, and it was all going so nicely, and then… I… he's been trying to make me _fall in love with him_ for ages now, and I knew he was doing it but I didn't think he'd…"

She sighs. "He wears his heart on his sleeve, that boy," she says, as though John and I were still in primary school and he had some sort of crush on me, chasing me around the playground with puckered lips. "So you were on the beach and he tried to kiss you?"

"He succeeded, that time," I correct, remembering it automatically. His lips had been softer than I would have expected for someone who doesn't take care of them. "I wasn't expecting it and he just kissed me. So I told him I wasn't interested and we came back here and he… he wouldn't listen to me. He just kept telling me that he could tell I wanted him to, and he backed me into a corner."

I rub at my eyes with the heels of my hands as though I could manually erase the memories. John would ask me why I couldn't just _delete_ them like I delete the solar system. His blatant misunderstanding when I told him about the way I delete things was really more amusing than irritating, no matter how much I griped at him about it. I can feel Mrs Hudson bristling with indignation and it's comforting that I know she's on my side, but I'm glad she doesn't say anything. I don't need to hear how badly out of line he was, because I already _know_ that part. What I want now, and I'm not sure if that's normal or not, is for someone to tell me that it's okay, because it's _John_, and that this doesn't mean that we can't be friends or that he'll never be the same around me again.

"When I finally got him to back off I… I yelled at him. Everything I never meant to say just came out, everything about how much I hate the way he tries to _help_ all the time like I'm a child he's been assigned care of or a stubborn patient at the surgery. But he's _John_, he always listens, he always checks everything and makes sure it's what I want, unless it has something to do with _me._ He force-feeds me and manhandles me into bed and now he's determined that I'm going to kiss him and love him as well! Anybody else on earth wouldn't care about how I make my tea, wouldn't listen when I ask them not to hum in the morning when they're reading the paper and I'm trying to solve a case, but if they tried to kiss me and I said no…" I want to get up and pace, to work this out – work _John_ out, but she's still pulling me to her and I don't want her to let go. "I just… it's _John_."

She clicks her tongue in a gesture of what I think must be sympathy and remains silent for another few moments. Then I hear her draw in a preparatory breath. "Sherlock… John's obviously realised that he's hurt you now. When you let him come back he'll listen to you. It's been a long week for the two of you, and he would have been frustrated and disappointed when you said you didn't love him."

"I never said I didn't love him," I correct softly. Only because I think John and Mrs Hudson have a different idea of 'love' to each other, and neither seem to be the one I'd come to understand. By John's definition, love seems to need to involve romance. Mrs Hudson tells _me_ she loves me every now and then, and that definitely doesn't have anything to do with romance. By Mrs Hudson's definition, I think what I feel for John _might_ be love. "He's my best friend and that means the world to me. I don't want to lose him. But I… I _trusted_ him, and then he wouldn't listen. Can I ever trust him again?"

Mrs Hudson squeezes me again; I think I feel my shoulder-blades click. "That's something you'll have to decide for yourself," she says. I'd been afraid she'd come up with something dreadfully unhelpful like this. "But I think John deserves to come back and apologise for the things you were angry about, and for not listening, and I think you need to say to him some of the things you said to me." She paused, her hand rubbing absently at my shoulder. "Do you want me to talk to him first?" she asks tentatively.

She's right, of course. I need to apologise for the things I said to John, to let him know that I wasn't as angry as I might have sounded and that I _need_ to save this, whatever it is, before it's too late. He's calmed down now, at least. He probably needs sleep and I'm tired too, even though I ended up sleeping last night, but I won't be able to calm down until I know he's not leaving forever. "No, I should... I'll be fine. Thank you, Mrs Hudson," I tell her, leaning in to press a kiss to her cheek.

The arm around my shoulder lifts as Mrs Hudson gets up. "Of course, dear. Good luck." She stops at the door and turns back, looking hesitant. I raise an expectant eyebrow. "So…" she says gently, as though she's not sure how I'll react to her question. "You didn't like it when John kissed you, then?"

I'm about to roll my eyes and say, _no, I didn't_, but then… I suppose I didn't… _hate_ – the kiss itself wasn't bad. In fact it was rather nice. It was the way I _felt_ during it that I didn't like. Mrs Hudson folds her arms like she already knows the answer. "I don't know."

She smiles sadly. "I'll let you think about it, dear, but really… what's the harm in just giving it a try?"

My bottom lip works its way between my teeth. "What if I can't? What if I can't do it and he leaves?"

The little landlady crosses the room to ruffle my hair. "One thing I know about Doctor Watson, love," she says gently. "He won't ever leave you if you ask him to stay."

And then she's skipping off down the stairs, and I'm left alone staring at the empty doorway and the positively malicious smiley-face on the wall and the message from John on my phone.

_What's the harm in just giving it a try?_

I _had_ wanted him to kiss me that first time. I knew what he wanted and I was curious and I _had_ been encouraging whatever he was doing for the past few weeks because I thought I could handle it, but I couldn't. It was just too much, the sensory flooding of John's smell and the sound of his breathing and my own heart and the feel of his lips and nose and breath against me and the urge to press harder, pull closer, to give and take _more_.

I'd considered and accounted for the fact that I might react, that I might want more contact, but not like that; my reaction to such a small, simple and unhygienic point of contact was so unexpectedly strong that it scared me, and breaking it off and avoiding a repeat was the natural reaction.

It's just too much, risking too much. I've spent my entire life gaining and exercising total control over my body, and then one touch of John's lips and it all disappears. It's too much control for one person to have over me – it doesn't matter that it's John, and I _trust_ him with this control, even _want_ to give it to him. The part of my brain that keeps that control won't let it go.

And yet… John's already such a huge part of my life that I miss him when he's not here, and the thought that I might have hurt him so badly with my desperate below-the-belt blows that he might never come back makes my stomach clench so fast I feel like throwing up. Evidently the rest of my mind – and definitely my body – wants him.

Don't I owe it to him to try?

Finally, I snatch up my phone and reply to John's text.

_Please come back. SH_


	13. Return

John's phone announces itself before his first pint even arrives, but he doesn't check it for a few minutes. It's too fast, and he's scared that it means Sherlock doesn't want to see him again.

Self-disgust tears his stomach lining apart mercilessly, but he knows that mercy is not something he deserves from it. Maybe alcohol wasn't the smartest plan he could have come up with after what he just did completely sober, but when the pint arrives he downs it in three swallows anyway.

What he just did is so completely out of character for him that he can still see it replaying, projected onto the screen of his closed eyelids. Sherlock backing up against the wall, trying to push him away, actual fear in his grey eyes.

He thinks he might vomit. Had he really been so consumed by his own desire and clever plans that he misinterpreted Sherlock's emotions? He'd effectively forced himself on the detective. And then after…

_After you've taken control of my body and my schedule now you want to take my "heart" as well?_

He thought he was being so nice, trying to coax the detective into eating and sleeping and being nicer to witnesses. Thought he was helping. He'd told himself that Sherlock would be grateful in the end, that he was improving his life, looking after him. It hadn't even occurred to him that he was, technically, trying to change his flatmate, and that said flatmate might not want to be changed, and were the situations reversed, yes, he would be rather angry.

With his second pint in his hands, John finally delves into his pocket and checks his phone.

_Please come back. SH_

John jumps off his chair and runs back to Baker Street as fast as he can.

Sherlock is sitting in the dark on the settee, staring into space blankly. John can see the ruins where tears have trekked down his cheeks and feels even more wrecked than before. _I did this to him._

"Sherlock," he says gently from the doorway, turning on the lights. "I am _so_ sorry."

The consulting detective's eyes are the only thing that moves, flicking up to John's face. He tries a tentative step forwards, and still Sherlock doesn't respond. The only other time he's seen his friend this exposed, this broken, was in Dartmoor after the detective had just had his first encounter with Project H.O.U.N.D.

"I didn't realise I was upsetting you so much," he tries to continue. "I wasn't… I don't want to change you, Sherlock, and I'm sorry I was trying, even if I didn't mean to."

The silence sits in the space between them like a bad scone in an empty stomach. John sits down in his armchair, facing the detective, trying not to say anything else, to let him collect his own thoughts.

"You were right, John," Sherlock voices finally, his voice clear but dull, without feeling. He eventually moves, shifting on the settee and placing his fingers in front of his lips. "I did… I _do."_

John isn't quite sure what he's referring to, but he keeps quiet, not wanting to push his friend. Sherlock drags in a deep, shaky breath and looks up at him again. "When I found this flat I could afford it by myself. What I said to Mike, I wasn't serious. I didn't mean it as a challenge. I've lived alone since the moment I could plausibly and legally move away from Mycroft and I never wanted it any other way. I've always been independent, and my living habits weren't exactly conducive to a healthy cohabitation environment. But then you walked into the lab and I…"

Sherlock rubs his chin hard with the knuckles of his thumbs, struggling internally to compose his thoughts the right way. Then he looks up at John again, his eyes deadly serious. "I _wanted_ you, John." He tries to smile, but it shakes. "I saw you and I knew I could have you, that you'd care about me and run around with me and not judge me the way other people did. I'd never wanted that before, but you were _right there_ and suddenly I _wanted_ it. So I went along with it, pretended I needed someone to split the rent with, pretended that was my plan all along."

The consulting detective sighs heavily. "You're the only person who's ever cared about me for _me_, not because I'm family or because I got rid of their abusive husband or solve their cases. It's… intoxicating. I didn't know it would feel this nice. John, you can't… I don't want you to leave. I don't _like_ that you try to force me to eat and sleep and all that stuff, but I like that you do it because you care about me. I'd rather have you and grumble about the ways you try to make me into a better person than not have you at all."

John waits until he's sure Sherlock is finished, then nods slowly. "Thank you, Sherlock," he says gently. "I didn't know how much I was hurting you, but now that I do, I promise you I'll try to stop, okay? I'm not going anywhere, not if you don't want me to, because I really don't want to."

Sherlock smiles weakly. "There's… I… the other thing you said," he says awkwardly, and John's stomach plummets.

"That won't happen again. I'm not sure how it happened the first time but I swear it won't happen again." Sherlock shakes his head, his curls swinging behind. "I'm really sorry. I can't believe I did that. _Either_ time."

"I wanted you to, the first time. You were right." Sherlock drops his hands and seems to retreat further into himself. "I knew what you were doing, and why you were doing it. I've never done anything like that before, but I knew you wanted it and I wanted to know what it would feel like. There's no-one I trust to do anything like that except you, John." The consulting detective runs a contemplative finger over the swell of his own cupid's-bow lips. "I told you to stop because it… it scared me." He averts his eyes, embarrassed at admitting this weakness. "I did like it, though, John, it was just too much. It made me want more and I could feel that I was losing control, and I'm never out of control, so I panicked. And then the second time I just wasn't ready to control it, and my brain shut down again. Those kinds of feelings, they're not something I'm used to, and I don't know how to deal with them."

John's not sure how he should feel about this. So he was right about Sherlock wanting it, wanting _him_. But the last thing he wants is to force one _more_ thing on his best friend that will fester inside him waiting for another explosion.

_I can't let you steal my heart._

"Sherlock," he says suddenly. "You know stealing someone's heart is just a figurative thing, right?" The detective gives him a scathing, _really, John, _look and for a moment it's the old Sherlock and John chuckles. "No, I wasn't thinking that you thought I actually wanted to cut you open and take it out. I mean, if you don't want to give it to me, I'm not going to force you. I won't take it against your will. I want you to love me, Sherlock, but only if you want to."

Sherlock sighs and shakes his head. "I don't really understand what that entails, John," he admits, looking mortified. "I think I'd like to. But I don't know quite what you mean me to do."

John stands up and tentatively moves over to his flatmate, who looks up at him for a moment, then sighs and shifts over so he can sit beside him. He doesn't make any further movements, so after another pause Sherlock huffs out a breath and leans down to rest his head on John's shoulder. A pale, long-fingered hand snakes its way to clutch at his sleeve. He fights the urge to hold and squeeze and own, and instead places his own hand over the detective's shoulder. "This is how, Sherlock," he says softly. "This is enough."

They sit there for long minutes, listening to the ebb and flow of the clock and the hum of traffic and life outside. Then Sherlock sits up, keeping John's arm around himself. "John," he says, as though he's not sure quite how to approach whatever it is he wants to say. John isn't used to Sherlock being shy, and he can't help wondering if it's his fault, and what he'll have to do to get the old pushy Sherlock back. "If you want to try… kissing me again, I think it'll be okay."

He reaches up his free hand and runs a thumb along the sharp ridge of the detective's cheekbones, his heart thumping uncomfortably. _This is okay. I can do this, he's letting me. _He bites his lip, looking at the pliant, nervous gleam in his friend's eyes. _I want more than that. More than him letting me. I want him to _want_ me. _"We don't have to, Sherlock."

"I want you to." The taller man doesn't hesitate this time. "I'm ready now, I'm expecting it. I trust you."

John searches his face for hesitation, and finds plenty. "If you want me to stop, just say and I will, okay?" Sherlock's only response is to close his eyes expectantly. John is jarringly reminded of his first girlfriend in high-school, expecting him to know what to do, how to proceed. Putting everything in his hands. He'd been clueless then, too.

Sherlock's eyelids flutter, and before he can open his eyes and protest that John is taking too long, the doctor leans forward and as gently as he can, touches their lips together. Sherlock breathes in slowly against him, his fingers tightening on the sleeve of John's jacket. John tries to draw back but the detective follows him, pushing forwards to keep the contact between them.

John's very aware of how easily the situation can slip out of control. He's wanted and imagined this for so long and it's _never_ been like this, with the detective so _vulnerable_. He has to keep a very tight hold on his self-control to avoid doing what every nerve in his body is screaming at him to do, pushing his flatmate back against the couch and taking him before he can protest. The knowledge that Sherlock is keeping a similar lid on his primal urges is somewhat hard to stomach.

He gently shifts his lips against the detective's, opening them slightly and breathing gently into his mouth. He remembers he must taste like beer, but he can feel Sherlock's free hand clenching and unclenching against his leg and the other man's breathing accelerates slightly. He wonders if his entire judgment of the experience is going to be based on Sherlock's minute shifts in body-language. He closes his mouth again, catching Sherlock's lower lip between his own and clamping down on it gently.

The detective lets out a low noise and surges forwards slightly, his hand rising to the back of John's head. John hesitates, wondering if this loss of control is going to spook Sherlock into stopping, but after a moment he slowly carries on, taking his lip right into his mouth and sucking on it gently. Sherlock keens quietly, so John touches the tip of his tongue to it.

Sherlock pulls back, and John very quickly lets go of him and shifts backwards on the settee to give him a bit of space. Too far. No tongue.

The detective is breathing heavily, staring at him, eyes wide. "John," he says, and his voice has impossibly dropped at least an octave. "That… I…"

John nods. "Too much. I'm sorry."

"Just…" He takes a breath and lets it out slowly, trying to get his heart rate under control. "It was nice. I want it. Give me a moment."

"Have you considered that this losing control is kind of the point?" John ventures finally. "Doing it slowly like this, always in control, it's hard for both of us because that's not the way it's meant to be."

Sherlock looks at him. "Yes. I know." He smiles weakly. "I… I just don't like not being in control. That's part of the reason I never wanted to try it before. I thought maybe I should gather data on it because it's the motivation for so many crimes, but it's not a stable source of data. And I didn't trust anyone else enough to try and lose control with them. I knew what you were doing, with all the making tea and the compliments, and I thought I should try – I found the notion… appealing. I'd expected to react when you kissed me, but it was too strong and my brain shut down and shut you out. But I want to try."

Touched speechless, John takes Sherlock's head in his hands and holds it to his chest. "I love you, Sherlock. So much."

The consulting detective wriggles his way out of John's grip and for a moment he thinks he's done something grievously wrong and the other man's about to run away and bang his door shut. Then Sherlock's lips are on him, hard and moving, and there's tongue and hands and John _wants_ so badly if he just dared to open his eyes he wouldn't be able to see straight, but he doesn't dare to do anything except kiss back. He leaves control of the situation in Sherlock's hands, holding himself back, because he knows that at any second it might all be snatched away from him.

"John," Sherlock growls between kisses, "I've never actually… _wanted_… anyone before." He pulls back, suddenly hesitant; John opens his eyes again to see the detective biting his lip. "I want it all with you, John," he admits almost reverently. "I want everything. John, you… you take my breath away."

John tries not to laugh. He really does. But Sherlock's statement irrevocably brings to mind the theme song from _Top Gun_, and it's so unlike Sherlock that he supresses a _who are you and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes? _After a moment of internal struggle, the corners of his mouth turn down trying to fight the grin, and after that external sign, he's lost.

It's lucky Sherlock's trying not to laugh too. When John loses it, Sherlock starts to chuckle as well, ducking his head embarrassedly. "All right," he admits through his giggles. "I'm sorry. That was… too prosaic."

"It just wasn't you," John agrees, propping himself up against the back of the sofa and trying to rein in his laughter. "Just… just be yourself, Sherlock, or this won't work."

Naturally, the impromptu giggle-fit all but erases the tension that had been building up, and John reaches for Sherlock without even thinking about his awkwardness and the intense need to stay in control; he takes Sherlock's angular face in his hands and kisses it, because he wants to, and because Sherlock is letting him, Sherlock _wants_ him to. The kiss is unhurried, gently parting his flatmate's lips and exploring his mouth with his tongue, holding Sherlock to him securely but not too tight that he can't get away. In response, the detective clutches at both of his arms and tries to pull him in closer until John is drowning gently in so much _Sherlock_, and it starts to feel more like usual, more like he'd imagined.

After a minute or so, Sherlock starts to take control, pushing John backwards slightly. Grinning into the kiss, John pulls away from Sherlock's lips to kiss and suck a line down his neck. The detective groans, startlingly loud in the empty room. John breaks away to listen to the noise in wonderment: _he_ made Sherlock do that.

Sherlock presses his tongue into the pulse-point under John's ear. It's warm and wet and twisting, and John's brain is suddenly _right_ back there. He gasps and threads a hand into Sherlock's curls, not pushing or moving, just there, and when Sherlock licks his earlobe into that unbelievable mouth he can't stop the detective's name escaping his lips. He feels Sherlock smirking against his neck and his heartbeat accelerates until it's one steady hum and each individual beat is indiscernible, blending into a song of Sherlock's name.

Then the consulting detective stands up suddenly, breaking all contact except gently brushing his fingers against John's palm. With a smirk, he drops that point of contact too and strides away.

John stares after him, mouth open. What was that? Is Sherlock _leaving?_ Did he go too far somehow? He finds his gaze slipping inexorably down the detective's back and to his rear, swaying slightly with the movement of his walk, the fabric of his impeccable black trousers clinging affectionately to the flesh.

Sherlock stops in the doorway to his bedroom and turns back to the doctor. He's still smirking.

"Are you coming, John?"


	14. Trial and Error

"_Are you coming, John?"_

John gapes at his flatmate, swallowing thickly. Sherlock leans against the doorframe, arms folded over his chest, one eyebrow quirked in a sultry sort of manner that makes John's shirt stretch over his chest. "Um… I… God, Sherlock. Are you sure? If you're worried about being in control shouldn't we take it slowly? We don't have to. What we were doing before, I could do that forever; we don't have to go any further than that if you don't want to."

The truth is he's not sure he can do this, can attempt to commit so much when he can't be sure Sherlock's committing too. This – what just happened, what Sherlock's suggesting could possibly happen next – this means so much to him, and it evidently means a lot to Sherlock, too, and he couldn't bear it if they messed it up by trying to go too fast.

"I think it'll be better to just… force my body to do it now, now that we've started. I refuse to let my brain tell me I can't do this, John."

John doesn't let the frown drop. "Okay, but Sherlock… most people don't move this fast. So it's not socially unusual or anything. You don't have to feel like you're expected to do this right now."

The detective stares at him, the eyebrow dropping, arms unfolding. "Come here," Sherlock says softly.

John stands up and measuredly makes his way over to his friend, his heartbeat so violent he can feel it in the pit of his stomach. When he stands in front of him, the man reaches forward and takes his hand. "Feel me," he says, still in the same soft, serious voice, placing the doctor's hand firmly on his neck, cupping his jaw, fingertips against the pulse-point. John takes in a deep breath; Sherlock's pulse is frighteningly fast. The detective moves the hand up to his cheekbone, letting John feel the heat of the blush spread across the bone and pressing his face into the contact, closing his eyes.

He's had this dream before, but the lights are too bright for it to be some longing kind of fantasy; if he was going to dream up a situation where Sherlock felt like this for him, they'd be under mood lighting and there wouldn't still be a slice of human liver in an icebox on the table behind them or the slight puffy red quality in the detective's eyes that betrays how imperfect this was when it started. But now, Sherlock's hand is guiding his, along the hot crease in his neck and over the collar of his shirt, the fabric warm from its indecent tightness, down to rest above his still-hammering heart.

"I want this." Sherlock's voice is firm and John can't help but believe him. "I don't know how I'm going to react, and I'm not entirely sure that it'll be positive, but if you still want to even knowing all that then _please_, John, I want to try."

John wonders abstractly if there's a way he _could_ possibly refuse if he wanted to. Sherlock _wants_ him, Sherlock's heart is beating this fast because of him. "Okay," he agrees. How could he not? "If you're sure."

In reply, Sherlock gently presses his hand lower, slides it down his shirt and over his belly, warm and soft and vulnerable, then John catches himself just before he flinches as both their hands traverse the waistband of Sherlock's black pants and come to rest on a portion of distinctly hot, hard flesh.

"I'm sure," Sherlock tells him. "John, I'm so sure. Please."

"Okay." The hand that isn't occupied with being held in a vice-like grip against Sherlock's erection finds its way to the detective's face and his lips find their way to Sherlock's again; this time his flatmate returns the kiss instantly, his mouth opening, tongue cradling John's lips. John involuntarily closes a fist around the bulge in his hand; Sherlock makes a noise he tries not to classify as a yelp and cants his hips forward. "We should move this into the…"

It's only three steps from where they are into the bedroom, and a further two until Sherlock's legs hit the bed and they break apart.

Not wanting to push Sherlock somewhere he doesn't want to go, John starts on the buttons of his own shirt first; he's managed to get two of them undone before Sherlock makes a noise of impatience and pushes his hands out of the way, tugging on the shirt until the rest of the buttons give. "I want to see you," he says in reply to the sort of stunned look John realises he must be giving him. "And I want you to see me."

Funnily enough, the speed he couldn't muster on his own clothing is easy to apply to Sherlock's, and he manages to dispatch Sherlock's purple shirt in record time without losing any buttons. Faced with the wide expanse of pale, neatly-muscled torso, John stares speechlessly.

"John?" Sherlock sounds nervous, but John finds himself unable to speak to reassure him that he's incredible, in fact he's so beautiful that words just shrivel up and die. He grips the detective's shoulders instead, guiding him until he sits down on the bed with a _flump_ and John follows suit, kneeling in front of his flatmate and placing reverent kisses along his collarbone, down his sternum, thumbs tracing delicate shapes across his areole and feeling the thump of Sherlock's heartbeat increase.

He gently pushes Sherlock down until he's lying on the bed; he doesn't want to straddle Sherlock in any way that could feel like trapping him, so instead he kneels to one side of him and licks softly at Sherlock's right nipple. The detective lets out a hissing breath and suddenly his hands are back on John, sliding around the waistband of his jeans to the button, and John takes that as invitation to bite down gently on the nipple as his fingers stroke soothingly downwards.

"Can I?" he asks, looking up at his friend, who let out a sharp yelp when John's teeth pressed at his nipple and a soft moan of disappointment at its release, and now nods furiously as John's fingers dance over the zipper on his trousers.

"Please, John," the detective gasps, yanking at John's own jeans to try and force them past his bottom. John stands up, dropping his trousers, and then eases Sherlock's pants down past his knees and off the bed.

John takes in a deep breath. Sherlock trembles as his cock springs free of his pants, flushed and heavy against his stomach. "_Oh,"_ John breathes. Sherlock whimpers.

He climbs back onto the bed and settles down beside his flatmate, his fingers reaching out of their own accord from the overwhelming desire to _touch_ and _feel_. "I should… this will be easier if I go and get…"

Sherlock rolls over and digs in his bedside table; recovering, he holds out a little plastic bottle in his pale fingers. John blinks.

"Lube. You have… why do _you_ have lube?" Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"I do masturbate, John. It's a necessary evil. Every once in a while the human body must release tension."

John's body shudders with the unbidden image of Sherlock lying much as he is now, his own hand between his legs, biting his lip to stifle the occasional sound. "Wait. A 'necessary evil'? Sherlock, you're supposed to _enjoy_ this."

The detective gives up holding out the bottle and throws it at him instead. "I'm enjoying _this_. John, you have no idea how much. But masturbating is just manual stimulation – I never had anything to stimulate my _brain_ before."

He can't help but smile at these compliments; the thought that he is so completely Sherlock's first that his flatmate hasn't even _fantasised _about anyone else before is helplessly arousing. "All right. Shh, now." He squirts a generous helping of lube over one hand and affixes it to Sherlock's erection.

"Ah! _John!_"

He watches, transfixed, as the consulting detective's back arches off the bed, his eyes closing and toes curling, calf muscles straining. John thinks that it's without doubt the most erotic thing he's ever seen. "Christ, Sherlock," he murmurs. "You're so beautiful."

Sherlock opens his eyes to smile at him. "You should see you," he says, too much breath in his voice and gusting out of his mouth between words. "Kiss me," he commands.

John happily obliges, teasing the fraenulum with one hand and keeping Sherlock close with the other as their lips meet, gentle and lazy and passionate.

A hand clutches clumsily at his cock through his pants, scrambling for purchase; John winces at the feeling of fingernails through the cotton and reaches down to grasp the hand and draw it away. Sherlock sits up, struggling onto his elbows with John's hand now flat on his lower belly, frowning down at him.

"After," John explains. Sherlock doesn't stop frowning; John's never been particularly garrulous, but arousal seems to strip his verbal skills away completely – much like Sherlock's physical co-ordination, it seems. "You just focus on you first, okay, and then when you're done we'll deal with me," he tries to explain.

Sherlock stares at him. "But I… I want…"

"Sherlock, please," John lets his hand snake back to the place he wants it to be; the detective huffs out a desperate breath, his core muscles tensing. "I can't focus on two things at once, not this first time. This is so much, you're so much. I can't concentrate on you when you're touching me yet."

The detective snorts out a long, loud breath and flops back onto the pillows. "Okay," he says finally. "But I want to see you, John. If I'm naked the very least you can do is adopt the same state."

John laughs. "All right." A shake of his legs disposes of his pants, and Sherlock's eyes roam hungrily down his body. He can feel himself shiver and respond; his previous thoughts of _I couldn't possibly get any harder_ are proved wrong. His flatmate's eyes are wide, the vulnerability still startlingly evident, but John can still see the desire, and something almost resembling _tenderness._

He focusses his efforts back on Sherlock, running his fingers gently up and down the length of the detective's penis, his eyes riveted on the man's face as it slackens, his green-grey eyes turned on John and bleary with lust. "John…" Sherlock murmurs, his hand reaching up this time to touch the doctor's lips, his jaw, his throat, running down John's arm to take his hand and hold onto it so tightly he fears for his fingers.

"Shh," John says softly, bending to run his lips over Sherlock's cheekbone. "Just relax. I've got you, Sherlock, it's okay, just relax and let go."

Sherlock turns his head so that their lips meet, sucking him in for a clumsy, bruising kiss that is all teeth and tongue and desperation. John can't help making a noise deep in his throat, the hand that's joined with Sherlock's creeping closer to his crotch and briefly providing some sort of friction for him to thrust against. "I love you," he whispers onto Sherlock's lips.

The detective releases his mouth, but not his hand, leaning back on the pillows again, his head tossing from side to side as John tightens his fist around Sherlock's cock. John lies down properly beside him and tangles one leg between Sherlock's; he brings their clasped fingers up to his mouth and kisses them as the detective's hips start rocking forwards helplessly. Sherlock is chanting as his head writhes around the pillow and John noses into his flatmate's neck to be closer to the words – a desperate litany of his own name.

"_John_," he gasps, his eyes squeezing shut, and the doctor knows he must be close. "John, John, _please_, John, I can't… I can't, I can't, I can't – stop, John, stop, _stop!"_

It takes John's word-starved brain a moment to process what the word 'stop' actually means. Taken aback, he withdraws his hand from Sherlock's groin and watches the detective slap it further away as he scrambles to the end of the bed and sinks into a crouch on the floor.

"Sh…Sherlock?" he asks, sitting up. He can hear the detective's panting breaths, but Sherlock's only response is to rock back until he's sitting in a foetal position against the end of the bed with his hands tugging at his hair.

He slides down the bed until he's sitting beside his friend, watching him gulp huge breaths of air and shake gently. "Are you okay?"

Sherlock drops one hand and sighs. "I'm sorry," he says, his deep voice trembling. "I'm really sorry, John. I thought I could do it, but… God, I'm sorry."

John tentatively lifts a hand and places it on Sherlock's shoulder. "No, Sherlock, it's… are you all right, though?"

A few more deep breaths later, the detective nods. "I think so. But I can't… I couldn't… John, you make me feel so much, I can't cope, I can't do it." His head hits his hands again. "John, I'm so sorry. I'm just not… I can't, I can't do it."

His heart trips and lands hard on the bottom of his stomach. "It's okay, Sherlock. I told you we were going too fast. We can try again later."

"No, John," Sherlock says quickly, sounding ever-so-slightly panicked, turning his head to look the doctor in the eye for the first time. "Please, I… I can't do that again. I'm sorry. It felt like… my head felt like it was going to explode and it _burned_ and my whole body felt… It wasn't…"

"It's okay." John feels guilty all over again – how can he predict what this would feel like to someone like Sherlock, who has completely cut off that part of his mind and body to the extent that masturbation is a 'necessary evil'?

He slides his hand around to Sherlock's other shoulder and gently eases him closer, half-expecting to be slapped away again; but the detective sighs and leans against him. "I'm so sorry. I feel awful – this is why I tried to make you think I wasn't interested, because I didn't know if I could ever follow through. Now I've led you on and then let you down. John, I'm sorry."

It's impossible to know what to say. He'd been so scared that this would happen, and now here they are. There's nothing he possibly _can_ say that would convey the depth of his disappointment without making Sherlock feel even more wretched than he seems to now. "Where do we go from here?" he asks instead.

Sherlock looks up at him from where he's curled weakly against his side. "Can't we… I suppose that's quite a lot to ask, to just go back to being flatmates and best friends."

"No," John says, even though his heart is screaming at him that this can't possibly be it. "We're stronger than that, Sherlock. We tried, but… sometimes things just don't work out. It would take more than this to stop you from being my best friend."

_Sometimes things just don't work out._ And yet – how cruel, if not of Sherlock then of _life_, to give him so much only to take it away quite literally at the last moment. John looks down at the fine-boned face peering up at him and thinks he might vomit. He suddenly has to get out of there, out of the room, away from Sherlock, but the detective looks so wretched and apologetic. John can still feel the heat of the man's erection against his thigh.

His friend looks down between them at John's crotch; even though his cock deflated significantly when Sherlock brought everything to such a screeching halt, he's still achingly hard. "I could… do you still want me to…" To finish his sentence, the detective reaches for John's penis.

John snaps. "No," he says sharply, disengaging his flatmate as gently as he can while still moving fast enough to avoid spraying him with projectile vomit. Once upright, he gulps in air to hold the nausea back. "No, Sherlock, it's fine. I just… I have to go. I have to… I can't… I just have to be alone for a bit to get used to this."

Sherlock's face falls even further. "Okay. I understand, John."

"I'm sorry," John says. He feels guilty, but he _can't_ stay in the same room as Sherlock. "I'll… I'll see you in the morning?"

The detective nods slowly, trying to smile and not succeeding. "Definitely."

"Okay." He feels like he needs to say something else, but after clenching and unclenching his fists a few times he simply repeats himself. "Okay. Goodnight, Sherlock."

Something that almost sounds like a sob echoes through the door as he closes it behind him and stumbles up the stairs to his bedroom in some state of clinical shock.

It turned bad so quickly he isn't quite sure how it happened. One minute Sherlock was gasping and writhing in pleasure under his hand – his neglected groin gives a shuddering throb at the memory – and the next he was crouching at the foot of the bed, looking terrified and begging John to forget the entire thing happened.

John sits down on his bed and sighs. He'd known seducing Sherlock would be risky. He just hadn't thought that he'd get quite this far before being slam-dunked. He hadn't thought he'd have the memory lingering in the back of his mind of just how close he'd actually come, refusing to allow his erection to subside.

His hand is still wet with lube. Sighing, John lies back and lets the hand that not minutes ago was wrapped so happily around Sherlock's cock close softly around his own, lets the images from before flood his senses: the smell of the detective's sweat, the sound of his tiny desperate gasps of _John, please_, the sight of his face and his nipples and his toes, curling and releasing in the bedsheets, the glimpses of that glorious arse as his hips jolted up from the bed and his cock slipped through John's fingers, and it doesn't take long before –

"_SHERLOCK!"_ John screams, not caring whether the detective can hear him because surely he knows what John's doing; he comes hard, and for a moment he forgets the disappointment and the gut-wrenching conclusion and just remembers what it was like to _have_ Sherlock for the moment that he did.

But eventually the last shudder of pleasure fades and he's left with what comes after.

John cleans himself up without moving, a bone-deep weariness consuming him. He'll deal with this – and with Sherlock – in the morning.

As he rolls over and a thin, dissatisfying sleep fogs over his brain, he thinks he hears a muffled shout of his name in Sherlock's voice from the bathroom downstairs.


	15. Residue

Sherlock is sitting at the kitchen table in his grey pyjamas when John comes down the following morning, a cup of black coffee cradled between his long-fingered hands. He looks as though he's had a similar night to John's own scattered, unsatisfactory sleep.

"Morning," John ventures tentatively, unsure how he's supposed to react. Are they going to pretend nothing happened? Or is Sherlock going to ignore him completely because his first introduction was supposed to acknowledge in some way what happened last night?

But the detective turns his head to smile sadly at him. "Good morning, John." His voice is quiet and level, but heavy with some kind of emotion that somehow faithfully wraps up last night for him, apology and regret and still that underlying fondness. John smiles back, acceptance and affection and disappointment. Together it forms some kind of understanding.

John puts the kettle on and digs around in the pantry for half a loaf of bread. "Toast, Sherlock?" he asks.

"No. A client called this morning, she'll be around at ten." John's mouth is open to command Sherlock to have a few bites of toast when he remembers the night before, the outburst, the resentment, and bites his tongue instead.

"Right."

They sit at the kitchen table together, not speaking. It's not nearly as awkward as John had worried it might be, but it's not as comfortable as it has always been either, and John still wants to scream. He _knew_ they wouldn't be able to do this, to just go back to being friends like nothing ever happened.

At five to ten the doorbell goes; for once, Sherlock springs out of his chair to answer it himself. John watches him go with a depressed sort of sigh before getting up and clearing away their – well, his – breakfast dishes.

He hopes they'll be able to talk to each other soon.

The thing that stings is that Sherlock tried to warn him, kept telling him that it might not work. The entirety of yesterday consisted of him pushing the detective into things he wasn't comfortable with and not listening to any protests or counter-arguments, pushing and pushing until his friend snapped and shoved back, and both of them ended up hurt.

Sherlock's voice is sickly sweet and forcibly polite from downstairs; the client, from what John can tell by her voice, is a young woman, timid and easily spooked, who didn't want to come but couldn't think of anywhere else to go. She immediately reminds him of Molly; not for the first time, he wonders how the pathologist had reacted the first time she met Sherlock.

He arranges his face into a more neutral expression as the two of them ascend the stairs again, Sherlock speaking somewhat soothingly with a hand at the young woman's back. John suppresses an unexpected flare of jealousy and cringes; he's never reacted quite that badly to his friend touching other people before. He's got to coach his brain out of the mentality that he can _have_ Sherlock, that in some capacity the detective is _his_, because he has very firm and concrete proof that's not true.

The far-off memory – or was it a dream? – of Sherlock crying out his name after they parted last night, much the same way as he had wantonly screamed the detective's, drifts back to him.

He swallows it. Sherlock flicks him a smile as he enters the room, and it's a small comfort. "This is John," he introduces to the woman. "My flatmate, and my best friend. Anything you have to say to me can also be said to him."

It's the same introduction he gives every time a client's eyes drift towards the doctor's unobtrusive person in the corner of the room as though they're about to protest, no more, no less. John smiles back at him.

Sherlock sits the client down in the chair and John takes his usual spot in his armchair; the detective elects to remain standing, fidgeting and pacing uncertainly. This is fairly normal behaviour, so John lets it go.

"So," Sherlock says shortly. "You said you had something to tell me?"

The woman's green eyes linger on John. "Yes, Mr Holmes. I had hoped we might keep it confidential?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Of course. Unless I'm obligated by law to tell someone, your secret is safe with us."

"Well." She settles back into her chair, relaxing slightly. Sherlock stills behind John's chair. "I think my husband may have sought out your assistance recently, perhaps yesterday? He is the Secretary for European Affairs."

For a moment there is silence in the room. Sherlock draws a sharp breath in. "No, madam; I'm afraid Doctor Watson and I were out of town yesterday. Lord Trelawney-Hope has not been a client of ours."

John starts at the name; he's seen it in the newspapers more than once. The woman, too, starts, looking at once horrified and tentatively relieved. "He hasn't been here? Well, then, perhaps the matter has sorted itself out…"

Sherlock huffs out a sigh of irritation. "Perhaps you should have talked to _him_ before coming to me," he says sharply.

Lady Trelawney-Hope turns pale. "Oh, no, Mr Holmes! My husband is the person I require confidentiality from most of all – perhaps I could still give you my story, and if he comes to ask your help it may be beneficial to you. But you must promise that you will not tell him."

The consulting detective's pacing brings him around to his own armchair; John can see the frown on his face. "If it might assist in solving the case, then I can't promise I won't tell him. Not without hearing the story first. It could be very important that he knows."

Her face falls. "Well… I thought maybe… I can't tell you, Mr Holmes, and then have you decide that you'll rush straight off to my husband and tell him."

"Oh, for God's sake!" Sherlock ejaculates violently, making both John and Lady Trelawney-Hope jump. "Either tell me, or get out. Stop _wasting my time!"_ The force of the shout propels him into the armchair, long pale fingers tugging at his hair. John stares at him; usually it takes more than this to make him explode with impatience. Something's put him off-kilter; he wonders if it's just last night.

After a moment's reflection, Lady Trelawney-Hope arranges her face into a carefully neutral expression and stands up. "Good day, Doctor Watson," she says stiffly, and then strides out through the still-open door.

Sherlock abruptly ruffles his hands through his hair and jumps up as if to follow her; John lunges forward and manages to catch hold of his sleeve. The detective flinches horribly as he turns back, and John cringes at the almost terrified look on his face. "I'm sorry," he says. "For last night. I kept pushing you. I'm sorry."

The violinist seems to deflate slightly, his wrist relaxing in John's grip. Evidently, he's hit the nail on the head; he's not sure whether he should be grateful there isn't something else on his mind. "No, John, it was my fault. I should have told you earlier, but I thought I could force my body to do it." Their eyes hold together for a bit, then Sherlock sighs and looks away. Downstairs, Mrs Hudson's voice floats back to them as she tuts and lets the woman out of the door, lamenting the detective's manners. Sherlock doesn't react, which in itself is more startling than his strop at the prospective client.

"I just can't stand it when we don't talk to each other. I don't want this to be something we can't get past."

Sherlock stares at him for a moment. Then, startlingly, he steps forward and takes John into his arms in a careful hug. Surprised, John takes a moment to wrap his own arms around the detective's back. "I'm sorry, John," he says. "I've been avoiding you because I keep remembering, how it felt and how much I... It's not your fault. I'm sorry."

John clutches him closer. "Don't be sorry, Sherlock," he starts to say, but he breathes in and the smell of Sherlock's musk overwhelms him. This, this is how the detective had smelt last night, stretched out, tense and straining – had that _hurt_, even then? "If… if you need some space for a while, I'd understand that," he says tentatively, holding his breath, hoping that Sherlock won't take him up on the offer. "I can go and stay with Harry for a few days if you –"

"No!" Sherlock gasps quickly. "Don't go. It's fine, I can handle it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at her."

He hums in agreement. "No, you shouldn't have. But she seemed a bit suspect anyway. I wonder what happened to her husband?"

"And why she was so scared of him hearing what she wanted to say," Sherlock agrees. "Though I have a feeling we may find out."

They stay there for a moment longer, the detective's chin resting on the top of John's head, warm and safe and comfortable, before the doctor reluctantly starts to untangle them. "I have work at eleven-thirty," he says, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece and realising that this means he has to leave pretty much right now. "But I'll be back by four. Shall we go out for dinner, or shall I pick some things up on the way back?"

Sherlock's arms loosen slowly, by gentle degrees, before he steps back and sighs. "We'll order take-away," he says, as usual choosing the option that John hasn't given him. He chuckles and shrugs; he's not about to complain if he doesn't have to cook.

As he leaves he starts to think maybe things will be all right.

* * *

><p>Work passes without event, and they fritter the evening away together in relative comfort. Every now and then John shifts too close on the sofa, or looks at Sherlock in what is apparently the wrong way, and one or the other of them will remember suddenly, the feel of their hands on each other, sharing breath and endearments and desperate looks, and Sherlock will shift away again, clearing his throat too loudly and changing the subject to something less intimate.<p>

John goes to bed disgruntled, but he's not sure what he was expecting. Things could have been a lot worse.

He wakes up late at night to relieve his bladder and trips over something soft in the hallway on his way to the bathroom, almost falling down the stairs.

"What the…" he fumbles for the lightswitch; when the yellow light floods the hallway, the obstacle whines and tucks its feet into itself. "Sherlock?"

The detective blinks a few times until his pupils contract enough to see. John's heart melts; he was obviously asleep out here in the hallway until he was tripped over. His face is scrunched with sleep and he's holding a pillow from his bed clutched tight to his chest like a teddy bear. "Sorry," he says quietly, his voice rusty. "I fell asleep."

John can't help but smile. "What were you doing sitting in the hall?"

Sherlock looks sheepish. "I… I wanted… I didn't know how to ask. I thought you might already be asleep and I didn't want to wake you up by knocking."

"You wanted…" For a moment he's clueless, but John Watson is anything but stupid. "Oh, Sherlock."

He smiles again as the detective looks sheepish. "I understand if you don't want… I mean, it's a lot to ask. But I do still want to be near you, John."

"No," John says quickly. "I know you do. I'm just going to the bathroom, go in." He gestures towards the bedroom; Sherlock smiles gratefully and stands up, his knees cracking from the effort. He holds the pillow from one corner, the perfect image of a child dangling a teddy-bear while holding its hand.

John leans in quickly, attempting to place a gentle kiss on Sherlock's lips; the violinist steps back and turns his head away. Their eyes meet; John's warm hazel eyes are confused, disappointed, while Sherlock's cold green-grey eyes are sad. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

Still confused, John steps far enough away that the smell of Sherlock's musk dissipates slightly, the memories fade, and he can think again. "But sleeping with me, that's a brilliant idea."

Sherlock looks away. "Probably not."

"I'm going to the bathroom," John repeats. "We'll discuss this when I get back."

He comes back to see the detective sitting on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, the duvet pulled over his ankles, his pillow squashed between his thighs and his chest. Sherlock looks up as he closes the door behind him. "So," he says gently.

John stands by the door. "So." He wants to move closer, to sit in the bed under the covers beside him, but if Sherlock thinks a gentle peck on the lips 'isn't a good idea' then what is he supposed to do? "I… Sherlock, I need a bit of specificity from you." His flatmate looks down at the floor, his expression guilty. "You told me you wanted to go back to being friends, to what we were before. Now you want to sleep in my bed? I just… I just need to know what the boundaries are. Apparently kissing you was crossing it, so I… I don't know, you know? How am I supposed to tell what's okay and what's not?"

"I'm not sure either," Sherlock says in a small voice. "I don't know, John. I… I think it would be easier for both of us if we just… didn't try to be romantic with each other, if we tried to pretend it never happened." John wants to interject, something about the fact that it _did_ happen and he's not sorry that it did, but Sherlock's face is so serious he stands back and stays quiet. "But I still want you, John, so much I couldn't sleep."

The doctor heaves a sigh. Sherlock doesn't sleep enough as it is, who is he to send him back downstairs? They've shared a bed before, after all. And yet… it's not fair, not on either of them, really, to keep pretending they'll be okay when every time he gets too close to the detective he can _smell_ him and feel his warmth and remember, and then it's hard to stop himself reaching out, even if it's just for a kiss on the cheek. It's not fair if Sherlock wants to be selective with what's acceptable. "Just for tonight, John, please, I won't ask again."

He sighs. "All right." He's too tired to argue anyway. One night of sleeping next to Sherlock and pretending that everything's all right. He nudges the detective down the bed and climbs in beside him, reaching up to turn off the bedside lamp. The sound of Sherlock's breathing fills the dark, and maybe in any other situation it'd be comforting.

After a few minutes of lying awkwardly side by side, John feels Sherlock's warmth envelop his side as the detective rolls into him, one hand sneaking across his chest, curly hair itching his shoulder. "Do you mind?" Sherlock breathes, turning his face to nuzzle into John's shoulder.

It's not fair. "Yes," he says, because he does; Sherlock's body against his is too close for comfort when he knows he can't touch it, can't let himself get used to being able to touch it when his flatmate is going to push him away in the morning.

"Oh," Sherlock says, sounding crestfallen. His hand lifts from John's chest hesitantly. "Do… do you want me to stop?"

John sighs again. "No, not really." Because he doesn't, not at all, and yet he knows he's only making it harder for himself. Sherlock smiles against his shoulder and presses his body closer.

"Thank you, John," he says, his voice leaving him in a contented huff of hot breath to soothe John's bare skin. John smiles helplessly. Within moments the detective seems to fall asleep, his grip over John's chest loosening and his breath evening out; he seems so different when he's asleep. John could almost make himself believe that last night went differently, that Sherlock is his.

His own body curls around the detective's, his arms wrapping around him, cradling him. Before he falls asleep, John buries his nose in Sherlock's hair and breathes, and places a gentle kiss on the top of his curly head.

* * *

><p>He wakes up with a start, not quite sure whether it was the sound of the doorbell or the sudden movement of the consulting detective that woke him up. Either way, the doorbell rings, Sherlock vaults from the bed as though the two are connected with live electrical wires, and John is very definitely awake.<p>

Not that that gives him time to say anything before his flatmate has left the room, the door banging forlornly against the wall as testament to the speed of his departure. John sighs, rolls over, and tries to go back to sleep.

"John."

And he's awake again. "Sherlock," he replies as composedly as he can, pulling himself into an upright position by clinging onto the headboard.

The detective grins. "Oh, good, you recognise me. Now get up, we've got a case."

John lets out his breath and uses it to propel himself onto his feet. "I'm up," he says, managing to phrase it like a definite statement and not a question.

Sherlock's smile widens. "Good. Come on. Put a shirt on."

When he shucks his pyjama pants without concern for privacy – it's too early in the morning and besides, Sherlock's seen him naked already – the detective turns an interesting shade of pink and ducks out of the room. John can hear him crashing down the stairs. He pauses in his dressing for a moment to listen; apparently he's not the only one who still has very vivid recollections of the night before last. He wonders how long it will take them to forget, to comfortably go back to normal. Wonders if they'll really ever be able to.

He wanders into the kitchen while his flatmate is nowhere to be seen and plugs the toaster into the wall. "Toast, Sherlock?"

"No time," comes the voice from directly behind him, and then there's a hand on his wrist dragging him out of the kitchen and down the stairs. Once again, John goes to protest that the detective should really eat something, but once again he remembers his promise not to baby Sherlock and keeps his mouth shut. "The case, John – the case is waiting!"


	16. The First Strain

It's incredible how quickly Sherlock can go from bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement about a case to shouting 'boring!' at the officers in charge.

John rolls his eyes in a long-suffering manner at Lestrade and clutches absently at his stomach as it grumbles loudly. Sherlock's green-grey eyes flicker quickly back to him before snapping back to the body still spreading blood-stains over the carpet.

"What options have you explored so far?" Sherlock calls over his shoulder.

Lestrade looks at John. "I'm sorry?" he asks.

Sherlock throws his arms up in despair. "Who have you interviewed? Wife? Neighbours? Anyone who could have seen the murderer come or go?"

The officer shoots a stern glare at the consulting detective. "You keep saying we should call you _before_ we do anything else."

"But you must know _something_," Sherlock growls, straightening up and closing his pocket magnifier with an ominous _snap_.

"His name is Eduardo Lucas," Lestrade provides. "I'd give you more information, but you probably already know more than we do."

Sherlock shoots him an _obviously_ look and bends back over the body. "Well, he does _something_ illegal. A secretary or note-taker, most likely in the government, so he probably informs to someone. The Russians, going by his cologne."

Lestrade looks at John, his face resigned. "So did they kill him? Maybe he got cold feet, tried to pull out?"

"No, this isn't the Russians' style. Too clumsy. This was a crime of passion; the murder weapon came from this room. They didn't plan on killing him when they turned up. Have you interviewed the neighbours, at least?"

A twitch of a smile appears on the DI's careworn face. "Of course. The old lady on the left is in Texas for her niece's wedding, and the couple on the right didn't see or hear anything. The man opposite works nights, left the house before it happened and got really shirty at Donovan when she woke him up to interview him."

Sherlock smirks at the thought of Donovan getting shouted at by a witness. John has to work hard to stop himself from doing the same as the Sgt. enters the room, sees them, and rolls her eyes in frustration. "Fine," Sherlock says finally, not seeing her, his eyes already spinning around the room. "If he was an informant there must be a safe somewhere here."

John watches as he scampers around the room, tossing desk drawers around and lifting paintings. Lestrade steps closer to him. "You all right?" he asks, awfully casual. John grins. "Sorry. You just look a bit... down."

"Sherlock and I had a bit of a... well... things sort of went a bit pear-shaped," John confesses. "I think we're okay now. It's not really something I'd like to talk about here, you know?"

The DI's eyebrows twitch. "Oh, right. Well, anytime you want a pint and a pizza, flick me a text."

John grins at him. "Cheers."

"_Nothing!"_ They both look up at the consulting detective, arms folded in a childish gesture of frustration, standing in the middle of the room surrounded by new carnage and pouting. John tries not to laugh, but Sherlock doesn't miss the expression. "Come on, John, we're leaving."

"Are we?" John asks, but he follows the detective as he sweeps out of the room. "Catch you later, Greg."

Lestrade laughs as Sherlock doubles back, grabs John's arm and drags him out of the room. "You'll probably want to keep someone at the scene at all times, in case whoever he was informing for turns up," he throws over his shoulder as they run.

"What's the hurry?" John asks when they're back on the street.

Sherlock releases his arm, looking sheepish. "I… we have to get back. I need to do some research." The truth dawns on John, but he contains his tiny smile and pretends he's still oblivious.

"Right," he says, picking up his feet and frowning as Sherlock marches off down the street. If they're always going to be jealous of anyone the other spends any time or attention on things are going to get rather complicated. John pictures Sherlock's _previous_ responses when he announced he had a date and winces. "Talk me through it, then?"

The detective looks at him as he catches up. "Whatever I told Lestrade, it's probably something to do with his work. So I need to do some research, I know a few people who can get me information on informing. Probably our best bet is really other informants, so we'll need to find the other prominent people in that – oh, for God's sake!"

John looks up in surprise as Sherlock's voice rises to a shout and sees a sleek black Mercedes pull into the curb beside them, coasting like a shadowy shark. John stops walking and sighs. "Maybe we should just…" he tries, but the detective has already stopped and yanked open the passenger door.

"We're not going," he snaps, slamming the door again.

Unsurprisingly, the car doesn't pull away. Sherlock attempts to keep walking, and the car keeps moving at the same pace. John doesn't follow. "Sherlock," he calls forward. His flatmate turns back slowly to look at him, his face pleading. "Maybe we should just go. See what he wants. It could be important."

Sherlock stops walking, his hands dropping to his side. "John, please," he says sadly. "I… he'll… he'll _know._" The detective looks as though he's trying very hard to stay calm, and John's heart reaches out to him the way his arms can't. "About us, he'll know what happened."

John's breath catches. "If you don't go he'll know you're avoiding him. Isn't that worse? Sherlock, this isn't something you should be ashamed of. It's as much my fault as yours. We knew it was a risk, but we did it anyway. It didn't work. That's _fine._ Does it really matter so much what your brother thinks? _I'm_ proud of you. Of _us."_

He watches as Sherlock bites his lip, staring at him like he's the most incredible thing in the world. John smiles under his scrutiny, remembering – it feels like a million years ago now – sitting at the kitchen table and planning how he was going to seduce his flatmate, getting distracted by the thought of Sherlock looking at him just like this. Maybe he hasn't won everything. Sure, that hurts. But he hasn't really _lost_, has he?

Sherlock smiles. "All right," he says. "Let's get it over with."

'Anthea' looks mildly relieved as they get into the car. Sherlock smirks at her. "What can you tell us?" he asks briskly.

"Nothing," she replies, her eyes on her BlackBerry. "It's a hugely confidential issue, I'm afraid."

John grins. "An issue of _national importance_?"

She smiles back. "Naturally."

When they pull up outside number 10, Downing Street, John can't help but stand protectively closer to Sherlock than usual, reassuring him with his presence. The detective reaches down and squeezes his hand.

Mycroft looks them up and down once, calculatingly, when they walk into the office. His eyes glitter, but he says nothing as they sit down side by side on the settee facing the desk. John follows Sherlock's lead, crossing his legs and waiting patiently for the elder Holmes to open the conversation.

"My condolences," Mycroft says finally.

Sherlock uncrosses his legs so that they nudge John's, a very clear signal. _Don't. Don't rise to his bait. Don't say anything._ But John's already sitting up straighter, tilting his head in a mock-curious manner. "Your condolences for what, Mycroft?" he asks innocently.

The British Government raises a cool eyebrow. "For the shift that you attempted to instigate in your relationship, and the subsequent disappointment you suffered at the hands of my brother."

"We tried something new and decided it wasn't for us," John replies, still with a blithely innocent tone of voice that everyone in the room recognises as entirely false. "That isn't Sherlock's fault. It's a little disappointing that it didn't work out, but I'm still glad that we tried."

Mycroft sneers. Both of them ignore the warning signals of Sherlock's frantically tapping foot fidgeting urgently against the carpet in favour of a small staring contest. "I could have told you it was unlikely to work," the elder Holmes says finally. "My brother has never had a successful sexual relationship in his life."

"At least he tries," John shoots back, quickly and calmly as Sherlock grows more and more desperate beside him. "At least he _tries_ to make connections with other human beings. But you, you're too terrified of failure to even _try_."

Careful eyebrows twitch slightly as Mycroft struggles not to react; John, too, tries not to let his smug feeling show on his face. How _dare_ the man insult his own brother like that? No _wonder_ Sherlock hates him so much. "I see," the Government says finally.

Sherlock stands up abruptly. "Let's go," he says, making for the door.

"We can't," John replies, still implacably calm.

The detective turns back to him, his fine-boned face incredulous. "Why not?"

John looks at Mycroft. "He hasn't told us anything about the case. There _was_ a case, wasn't there? Quite an important one. If we leave now, he'll have to call us back later."

Sherlock looks from his brother to his flatmate to the door. "Fine," he sighs finally, trudging back to the settee and throwing his body down in a way that eloquently expresses how much he'd like _not_ to be there. John grips his knee, trying without words to apologise for pushing the issue. Sherlock's fingers briefly brush against his. "You can let the 'client' in now."

Mycroft lets out a breath, lifting a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Thank you. _Robert?_"

The side-door opens and a short, too-thin man peers around it before stepping into the room. John watches as Sherlock's lips quirk into a smile. "_Oh_," he breathes. "Interesting."

Nonplussed, John looks up at the man. He thinks he might have seen him somewhere before, but politicians are always in the newspaper nowadays anyway so that's not unlikely.

"Lord Trelawney-Hope," Sherlock greets amiably, dipping his head politely. "Pray tell me your troubles."

John sits up straighter, the woman from the day before floating back into his head. Mycroft's eyebrows shoot up into his hair. _Lord Trelawney-Hope. _This could be about to get a thousand times more interesting.

"Tea?" Mycroft offers, gesturing to a side-table containing a number of decanters and a teapot. "Coffee, perhaps?"

Sherlock continues to glare at him, not looking at the table. "Coffee," he accepts briskly.

John frowns. "Sherlock, you've hardly eaten anything for the last two days, are you sure -" The consulting detective lifts his eyes skyward and sighs in exasperation, so John shuts up pronto. "All right, sorry."

With that, Sherlock stands up and pours himself coffee; when he returns, he slides a porcelain cup of tea into John's hands as well. John stares at him. Sherlock smiles tentatively.

"So," he says as he turns away, switching seamlessly into detective mode and crossing his legs as he faces Trelawney-Hope. "What seems to be the problem?"

He says it in a falsely cheerful voice with just a hint of derision, quite clearly aiming to impersonate a GP. John tries not to feel insulted. Trelawney-Hope, though, doesn't get the joke. "We must insist that not a word of this leaves this room," he says seriously instead.

"Of course," Sherlock assures him.

The Foreign Minister seems to relax slightly. "Well, Mr. Holmes. I'm afraid it's quite a tale. A letter came into the possession of the government last week from the Russian Embassy, written, it seems, by someone in their government and denouncing the carefully-structured routes of trade and treaty between our country. It was not a letter that intended to enforce change, and it would cause significant uproar were it released to the public."

"Let me guess," Sherlock interrupts. "It's been stolen."

Trelawney-Hope looks awkward. "It was given to me for safekeeping. I put it in my personal safe for the night, right beside my bed. My wife and I are both light sleepers, no-one could have entered the room in the night without one of us waking up. It was only there for one night, then when I went to collect it the next morning it wasn't there."

Sherlock nods as though this was exactly what he was expecting. "How much does your wife know about this?"

"Absolutely nothing." The detective raises an incredulous eyebrow. "I don't bother her with my work. She wouldn't understand it. And I didn't want her to worry."

John and Sherlock stare at the man for a moment. John's buzzing with curiosity; he wishes, now, that Sherlock had sworn to secrecy when Lady Trelawney-Hope visited. He's willing to bet Sherlock's wishing that too. After a while, Sherlock draws in a sharp breath and seems to snap out of deep reflection, stirring in his seat. "I see. And nobody at all had access to this safe except for you and your wife?"

The smaller man nods. "My PA was there for a good portion of the night, but he never went upstairs."

Mycroft interjects with a small cough. "Our priority, I think, should not be in discovering who took the letter, but in recovering it. There is still a significant black market for these things, it seems that our first avenue of enquiry should be -"

"And you're not watching the black market? Can't you do this yourself, Mycroft?" Sherlock snaps.

The elder Holmes turns his light brown eyes on his younger brother. "Of course we are watching it, Sherlock. Our first problem lies in locating the most prominent supplier of such... tidbits to the market. My people have been unable to find him - an Eduardo Lucas."

"Yes, I can imagine that would be a problem," Sherlock replies, his eyes lighting up. John, too, sits up straighter and leans forward. "Considering he was murdered yesterday evening."

Mycroft's lips tighten into a thin hard line. "Ah," he says shortly. "Yes, that does throw a spanner in the works."


	17. The Second Strain

Sherlock sits up straighter and folds his hands so that his index fingers tap gently against the succulent curve of his lower lip.

John notes with a frown the adjectives his brain is still using to describe his friend. This is what got him into this mess in the first place; he sends his brain a sharp reprimand and tries to focus on the conversation.

"We can't just assume that they're related," Sherlock is saying. "It's likely, but we can't rule out coincidence. And since I can't inform Lestrade of this development, we'll have to see what Scotland Yard comes out with on their own." Mycroft lifts an incredulous eyebrow as though doubtful the Yard could come out with _anything_ without help. Which is probably a valid doubt, but it still makes John bristle with indignation. He tries to ignore it.

Lord Trelawney-Hope is still looking nervously from Sherlock to Mycroft. Eventually the elder Holmes puts him out of his misery. "I understand you have considerable contacts on both sides of the information black market, dear brother?" he suggested. "A close watch on that is no doubt the first step we must take. The people that I have in that area are watching already, of course, but a few extra eyes never hurt anyone. Should this document appear in the market, we may be able to purchase it before the Russians do."

"Of course," Sherlock says. "It's possible they'll want to offer it up to us first, see what kind of price they can get at our end before they send it through to them. There are a couple of people who may have something to do with this that I'll want to talk to first, and then I'll take another look at Lucas' house. I had a preliminary search for a safe, but it's possible I missed something."

The detective looks back at John in a way that makes him understand that _people _means Lady Trelawney-Hope, and stands up. John drains the last of his tea and follows, noting as he goes Sherlock's empty coffee cup and the fact that this means his flatmate has had two cups of coffee on an empty stomach this morning and that the effects are likely to be drastic.

Before the door, Sherlock stops and turns back. "I should ask; what do you think will happen if this letter gets out?" he says briskly, his green-grey eyes searching his brother's face piercingly.

Lord Trelawney-Hope casts his eyes downwards. "War, Mr Holmes," he says, his lips tight and pale.

Sherlock gives a tiny resigned smile. "Then I suggest you prepare for war."

"You don't think you can help?" Mycroft asks, his voice sharp. Sherlock turns back to him.

"If someone has stolen this letter, why would they wait long enough for us to muster our forces to get it back before they sold it? We'll do our best, Mycroft, but in all honesty it's probably too late."

They leave to the sound of Lord Trelawney-Hope's broken sigh and the sight of him dropping his head into his hands. Sherlock visibly withholds a smirk. "Do you really think it's too late?" John asks as they start down the stairs at a trot.

Sherlock shakes his head minutely, one corner of his mouth twitching up. "It's very possible. But then, it's also very possible that the letter was somehow lost with Lucas, or that whoever has it now will offer it to the British government first. Trelawney-Hope was exaggerating, though, there won't be war. Although someone probably told _him_ that to scare him. Mycroft will be able to smooth it over."

Outside, the sunlight is startling. Both men stop by the door and blink a little. John's stomach bubbles hopefully; he dreads to think what Sherlock's must be like. "Do we have time for lunch?" he asks casually.

The detective shoots him a stern look. "No," he replies shortly. "We've got to go and see the Lady Trelawney-Hope. Her information could be vitally important."

"Bet you're wishing you pledged confidentiality now," John muses.

Sherlock looks at him under the hand raised for a taxi. "That would have been a lie, then, John. I'll almost certainly have to tell Mycroft and her husband about it."

"Since when has lying to a client been a problem for you?" John asks incredulously.

The look intensifies, becomes something strange. "Never. But it's always been a problem for _you_." While John stands around and wonders what to make of that, a cab pulls into the curb beside them and Sherlock bundles himself in. "We'll have to try and intimidate the information out of her," he continues when the car has pulled back into the flow of lunchtime traffic. "We can let her know just how big a problem this is for her and her husband and hope that that outweighs the risks of him finding out whatever it is."

Sherlock starts when Lady Trelawney-Hope opens the door. "Oh!" he says cheerfully, his 'normal' smile slapping itself onto his face. "You've had a haircut, my Lady."

She has indeed shorn several inches off her sleek hair; what had been a long bob when she had come to see them at Baker Street now hugs the curve of her jaw and makes the angular structure of her face seem more pronounced and severe. At Sherlock's scrutiny, however, she smiles, the sharp ridge of her cheekbones flushing pink. "Yes, thank you."

"It looks lovely, your stylist is to be complimented," Sherlock continues. John tries not to frown as his brain whirrs through possible reasons for the flattery.

Lady Trelawney-Hope flushes even brighter for a moment before pulling the door open enough for them to pass. "Thank you. Please come in, Mr Holmes. I hope this means that you intend to reconsider my case?"

Sherlock grabs John's hand and drags him over the doorstep. "To an extent, my Lady. Your husband has sought my services since last we spoke and I was hoping you might reconsider your reluctance to keep this matter from him given the severity of the situation."

The slight woman blinks at him for a moment, her eyes sad. "Would you like tea, Mr Holmes? Doctor Watson?"

Sherlock grins brightly, so John follows his lead and accepts. Lady Trelawney-Hope bustles out of the room; John tries to catch Sherlock's eye to get some indication of what's going on, but the detective has leapt from the seat he was offered and is busy inspecting the display on the mantelpiece. The house is brightly-lit and modern, and instead of family or wedding photos above the gas fireplace there are sleek white beach-pebbles and clumsily-painted canvasses.

When she comes back in Sherlock looks around quickly, his smile already back in place. "May I ask who painted these canvasses?" he asks, still in the same bright, cheerful voice. "They're lovely."

"My nephew," she replies, smiling fondly at them. "He gives us a new one every Christmas, bless him. Soon we'll run out of room. Do you take milk, Mr Holmes?"

"Thank you." They sit down again, clustered around the glass coffee table. "So. How much do you know about your husband's dilemma?"

The woman fidgets awkwardly. "I am aware there was a document in my husband's safe that was found missing when he woke up. He seemed so worried. It must have been important?"

Sherlock dips his head slowly. "Very. But you don't know what it was?"

She shakes her head. "He doesn't confide in me. To be honest, I don't think I'd understand if he did."

The consulting detective leans back in his chair, surveying her with his sharp green-grey eyes. She blushes again as his mouth curls into a lazy smile. "I really do like your haircut. Sorry, that's a bit invasive, isn't it? My sister wants a new hairstyle, it would look _great_ on her. Do you think… no, that's rude."

Lady Trelawney-Hope's silvery-pink nail polish fiddles with the hem of her tunic, a little flattered smile playing on her mouth. John shakes his head wryly, but neither of them are paying attention to him. "What?" she asks shyly.

Sherlock sits forward again. "Do you think I could take a picture of it? Just to show her the style, see if she likes it. Not if you're not comfortable, obviously. I can try to describe it to her, but a photo would be better."

The woman watches him for a moment, frowning. "I promise I'll delete it after I've shown it to her," Sherlock reassures.

After another moment Lady Trelawney-Hope smiles. "Of course," she says shyly. Sherlock jumps up and pulls his phone from his pocket; John watches as the older woman smiles nervously for the camera.

As soon as they both sit down, Sherlock's manner turns brisk and business-like. "So, my Lady," he says, his voice back to its usual baritone rumble. "Will you tell us what you know about this missing document?"

The reply is almost instant. "Will you promise me you'll keep it from my husband?"

John's expecting the sigh of irritation this time. "Do you understand how serious this is, my Lady?" he asks.

She swallows visibly. "I assume there will be significant damage to his career if the document is released to the public?"

"If he cannot recover the document, my Lady, it's likely he will no longer _have_ a career."

There's a long silence. For a moment the woman looks as though she's weakening; her posture relaxes into the couch as Sherlock sits up straighter in his chair. Then she sighs. "I can't," she apologises. "I just can't. I'm sorry."

Sherlock waits until they're out the front door before he lets out a hoarse roar of frustration. John stands back until he runs out of breath and swings a fist into the wall instead; as Sherlock steps back, breathing heavily and nursing his begloved knuckles, he clears his throat.

His flatmate pauses for a moment, the breath leaving his lungs in a prolonged whoosh. Then he looks up at John. "Sorry," he says quietly, so quietly that John doesn't hear it over the steady suburban traffic and only understands the word because he can read it on Sherlock's lips. John shakes his head. After another moment of staring blankly at the white front door, Sherlock takes a deep breath in and turns away. "Let's go home for a bit, I can't think with all of this noise."

Really there's just as much if not more noise back on Baker Street, but for some reason Sherlock seems to find it easier to block out the background stuff there but curling into a foetal ball on the sofa or creating louder noise himself. Or both, as is often the case.

But. John reasons, at least there's food there, and even if he's trying not to baby the detective or force him to eat, there can be limited harm in placing a dish of something in front of him to try and encourage him. "Great," he says, stepping out to join Sherlock in front of the taxi that seems to magically appear every time the tall man sticks out a hand. "I'm hungry."

Sherlock turns green-grey eyes on the plate of pasta John sets down in front of him at the kitchen table; his face remains expressionless as he turns it towards John, sitting at the other end of the table and shunting measured amounts of the stuff into his own mouth. He sighs. "John…"

"I'm not forcing you to eat it," John assures him. "If you just leave it, that's fine. I've just put it there so you _can_ eat it if you decide you're hungry."

His flatmate stares at him for a while. Then he shrugs. "I'm not," he says, pushing abruptly away from the table as though the smell of the pasta is making him ill. "If I am, I'll let you know. I have to think." He starts pacing frenetically, his shiny black dress-shoes tapping a sharp, staccato rhythm on the lino of the kitchen floor.

John tries not to be hurt by the sharp dismissal. "You're welcome," he says softly. The taller man either doesn't hear him, or pretends he doesn't.

Sherlock's phone chimes; he yanks it out of his pocket frantically, reads the text and actually yells out in frustration.

"What?" John asks quickly.

The detective thrusts the phone in his direction. "Lestrade's arrested Lucas' _gardener. _The _gardener!_ Why the _hell_ would it have been the _gardener_?"

John steps back, bewildered at Sherlock's vehemence. "Did you… I don't know. There's got to be some reason. They can't just arrest anybody. Call him and ask him."

But Sherlock has already put the phone to his ear, his feet carrying him around the room in tight circles. "Why?" he barks sharply into the phone when the DI picks up. John can hear the bewildered tones of the other man coming from the device. "So _what?_ And nobody ever inherits anyone else's possessions after they – did you even _check _his will?" John frowns at the extent to which Sherlock is wound up about this; Lestrade's voice bubbles from the other end of the phone only to be cut off angrily. "But _why_ would it be him? What else have you got? Surely there's more than just a few gardening tools. _Christ_ you lot are stupid! Let him go, he didn't do it."

He hangs up the phone with an overly aggressive stab of his thumb. John waits a moment to see if he's going to calm down, realises he isn't, and speaks anyway. "Sherlock, stop for a moment. Take a deep breath. You need to –"

"_John!"_

It's so sudden and violent that both of them jump. When John realises that Sherlock yelled loudly enough to give _himself_ a fright he tries to fight the giggle that rises, because the detective's eyes are on the ground and he looks like he might be about to cry. "Sorry," Sherlock says again after a moment. "I didn't mean to shout so loud. But you heard him – we'll probably end up at war if this gets out. I can't think about eating or sleeping or whatever it is you want right now, John, I've got to focus on this case."

John sighs. "Do you think you could maybe do that _without _shouting at Lestrade?" he asks quietly.

Sherlock almost grins. "I am trying. But they've just arrested a completely innocent man who shouldn't have even been a _suspect_. Just when I was starting to think the man might actually be _intelligent_. We have to get down there."

And he's off again, stuffing his hands through the arms of his coat and slinging his scarf around his neck. John sighs in resignation. "Where, Scotland Yard or the crime scene?"

"If we hurry we'll make it while they're still holding him at the scene," Sherlock replies, yanking open the door. John looks forlornly at the two plates of pasta for a moment before following him.

Lestrade rolls his eyes long-sufferingly at John when they burst onto the crime-scene. Sherlock ignores him completely, striding up to a young man who's been handcuffed to the desk-chair. He looks around twenty, dirty-blonde hair falling like dirty straw in front of his eyes. His nose looks like it's been broken at least twice. The detective crouches in front of the boy, his knees cracking uncomfortably, his dark eyebrows bent into a frown.

"Why have you been arrested?" he asks without ceremony.

The boy jumps, staring at him with wide eyes. "I… I 'ad some of Eddie's gardenin' tools an' the like. They gave 'um to me, officer, I swear, when they read 'is will this morning. I came down 'ere after, to tidy up the lawns an' that, 'cos I usually do it on a Tuesday an' I din't see no reason to stop. Just 'cos 'e's dead dun't mean the grass stops growing, y'know? So I come down 'ere with 'is gardenin' tools in my bag and I get arrested. I en't done nothin' wrong, officer."

John watches with considerable amusement the tiny flinch Sherlock gives at each missed vowel and incorrect grammatical clause. When the boy is finished, the consulting detective turns to Lestrade. "This is ridiculous," he says shortly. "It's not even worth the resources you would use to get him back to the Yard and look for a reason to keep him there. There's no way in Hell this man has done anything wrong. I'm going to have another look through the house for a safe."

Lestrade heaves a sigh, looking over Sherlock's shoulder to Donovan, standing with her arms crossed and a furious expression on her face. He shrugs. "You know he's right," he says resignedly. "We may as well just let him go." Donovan has opened her mouth to reply – no doubt something cutting and useless that John, at least, isn't at all in the mood to hear – when an obnoxiously cheerful ringtone interrupts her.

The DI turns away from them to answer his phone. Sherlock folds his arms obstinately over his chest. "Lestrade," the older man barks quickly. "Yes, of course. No, we know he's not, it was a desperate man's shot, I'm afraid." John doesn't miss the smirk that traverses the detective's face at this. "What, really? All right, I'll be right there, we'll clear the scene. Cheers, Sergeant."

He hangs up, turning to look at Sherlock, beaming. "Lucas eloped with a woman in France ten years ago. She just turned up at NSY and confessed to killing him in a fit of jealousy after seeing him with another woman. I need you to clear the scene, sorry, Sherlock."

Before either of them can quite process what's happening, they're outside on the street blinking in the sun and staring at a burly officer standing in the doorway and smiling back at them in a way that quite clearly indicates he won't be letting them back in and Lestrade is apologising to them again through the window of a patrol car.

"So that's it?" John asks blankly, looking up at Sherlock as the detective's eyes follow the patrol car around the corner. "It was some long-lost Bertha Rochester and that's it?"

Sherlock blinks a few more times, glancing up at the man standing in the doorway. "It… seems so," he says finally. After another minute's pause he whips out his phone and starts walking. "Come on, John," he tosses over his shoulder.

"Where are we going?" John huffs out, having had to jog the last few steps to keep up with him.

The detective casts a glance back at him. "Vauxhall arches. We need help."

Startlingly loud in the relative silence of the street, Sherlock's stomach makes a protesting grumble. John gives him a knowing look, all ready to suggest a detour to some kind of sandwich shop or Chinese parlour; when he looks, though, the detective is studiously buried in whatever he's doing with his phone.

John's not stupid. He knows that Sherlock is denying John's help out of spite and pride – and perhaps the tiniest bit of misplaced guilt over his outburst – to prove to him that he really can cope without John telling him to eat, that he really can look after himself. Right now, his flatmate seems determined to deny himself food until the case is over. John sighs; if Sherlock doesn't want his help, he's going to give a bloody good attempt at not giving it. Sherlock can starve himself until he passes out before John tries to force him to eat.

In the end, it's three days before both men crack.


	18. The Final Problem

Sometimes it's easy to block things out.

Naturally I have no latent inhibition, and it's taken years of training to get to the stage where I _can_ block everything out when I'm trying to think, to close off my brain to every input except the thoughts swirling around behind my eyes. The lack of latent inhibition allows me to notice everything; the ability to block background things out when I need to enables me to _do_ things with the flood of information I pick up out of that.

Really, I have the perfect brain.

Except for times like now.

I'm hungry, and I can feel it, and I can't shut it out. Normally had I been left to my own devices I would have eaten something by now, but normally under _these_ circumstances I would have had something forced into my mouth by John. But I yelled at him, and he promised he would trust me to know when I need food, and he's trying as hard as he can not to push me.

So really what I should be doing is proving to him that I _can_ look after myself.

What I'm doing instead, apparently, is proving that I can't. That some part of me doesn't want to. That I am now deliberately starving myself to see what point John will let me get to before he steps in and forces me to eat again.

I know it isn't healthy. But I can't help it. I want to know that he cares about me more than he wants to spite me by proving that he's right.

I have to shut it out because it's been three days since that document went missing and I need to _think_, only there's _nothing_ to think because I've thought it all over a million times and there's no new information because _nothing's _happened and I can't understand why, and I'm hungry and it hurts like an ache in the pit of my stomach and I can't block out the noise of the traffic and the loo flushing and Mrs Hudson making tea downstairs and I need John to breathe and talk and make a calm noise I can focus on but I sent him away two hours ago because he was standing too close and distracting me and it's all too much, I can't _function_ with all this noise, and it fills me up until my head explodes and I have to scream in frustration.

Then John comes running, of course.

"You all right?" he asks.

I'm crouched on my armchair hugging my knees and hitting my forehead lightly against them; at his words I shake my head. "Can't think."

He sits down opposite me. "Can I help?" I look up at him, trying to think what he could do to help. "Maybe you just need something to take your mind off it for a bit. Is there something we could do to help you think of something else?"

My mind fills with possible things John and I could do together; I suddenly have to hide from him the fact that all the blood in my body has shunted between my legs so fast I feel lightheaded.

This is the other problem. Really, this has been possibly more bother than the case; the fact that every time John's in the room I remember what happened between us and then I can't think about anything else. I've hidden more erections from him since then than I'd even _had_ in my life beforehand. And that's the other downside to my brain.

I've been training it so religiously since I was a teenager to block things out and always stay in control that now I _want_ to be a little bit out of control, to let John take the reins for a bit, I can't do it. I wanted to so badly – not even for my own pleasure, but just to show him that I could. Because I've seen it in his eyes when he looks at me: he thinks that the reason I couldn't was because he wasn't good enough. How can I expect him to understand the way my brain works?

His hands on me were so different to my own. I wasn't expecting it at all, the influx of pleasure so mind-shattering that it got to the stage where I knew that if I let go I would have passed out. And I just couldn't.

I recover myself enough to shrug at John; I hardly think Scrabble or whatever antidote he's about to come up with is likely to work. He grimaces. "I don't know. Talk me through it. Maybe saying it out loud, explaining it to someone else, will help you see it in a different way?"

"I can't talk you through it," I tell him, hunching closer into myself.

He frowns. "Why not?"

"Because there's _nothing to say!_" I snap, whirling off the sofa and pulling my dressing-gown around me. John jumps and I feel guilty, but I don't say anything. "John, _nothing_ is happening. Whoever has this thing is just _sitting_ on it! Nothing's come up on the black market, no-one in our government _or_ theirs has been approached, no ransom has been offered – _nothing!_ There's _no new information_, John, and there's nothing I can do with the information that we have. I don't understand what this person thinks they're doing! It's no use to them sitting under their pillow!"

John nods, frowning. One can almost see the cogs grinding behind the skin of his forehead. "Maybe –"

My phone tries to drill a hole in the table by vibrating hard enough to wake the dead. That phone is the bane of my life; forget autocorrect, it makes noises at the most inappropriate times.

When it doesn't stop, I suppose I'd better answer it.

"Sherlock Holmes."

Lestrade's harrowed voice comes out of the other end. "It's me. We've found something when we were cleaning up Lucas' house. I don't know if it's important, but it's the weird sort of stuff you like, so you may as well come and have a look."

The phone is off before the end of the sentence. "Come on, John, they've noticed something back at the crime-scene."

John is up in an instant, reaching for his coat. "What, Lucas' house?"

I stop by the door; my head reels a little from the sudden movement. I really need to eat something, but there isn't time. "Yes. He says it probably isn't important but it's strange, which means it's almost certainly _vital_. To us, at least."

Lestrade is at the scene alone but for one other officer, the burly man who'd stood at the door and refused to let us in when they closed the case. "Right," I say to him when we get there. The burly officer strolls off down the corridor. "What have you found?"

The DI smiles grimly. "Hello to you too," he grumbles. "All right, John?"

John cocks a half-smile. "Fine, thanks."

"Right, good. Well, we were just straightening things out a little when we found… this piece of carpet over here isn't fixed down to anything."

I look at it. "I can see that. It's crooked."

"Well, yeah," Lestrade says, twisting his hands together. "It was like that when we found it. So we picked it up to straighten it. Come and have a look."

Lestrade crouches over the carpet. "See here, this stain? Would have made a mark on the floor underneath, right?"

"You would think so," I agree. It looks like red wine, a deep, dark smear on the faintly disgusting peach carpet. "But I wouldn't be too worried if it didn't."

The DI actually rolls his eyes at me. John grins. "But look here. It's even soaked through to the other side of the carpet. There should definitely be a stain on the floor, but there isn't," he says, lifting the edge to show us. True to his word, the floor is stain-free. I can feel the corner of my mouth lifting. "The stain on the floor is over here," the silvery-haired man continues, lifting the other corner of the carpet. "Someone's moved this carpet."

John stands up, groaning slightly as his back makes an ominous clicking noise. "Maybe Lucas moved it. Cleaned under it, or something. It doesn't tell us anything."

I smile at him. "On the contrary, John," I tell him. "That man, Lestrade, the other officer that's here – is he the one who's been here all the time? Watching the scene?"

Lestrade nods. "He's a good guy."

"Go talk to him in another room. Tell him that you know he let someone into the scene over the weekend – don't _ask_ him if he did. Tell him you _know_ he did. Not in front of us."

He looks thoroughly confused. "You think this was done _recently_?" he asks.

I smile. "Most definitely. Go on, Inspector."

John looks at me as Lestrade gets up and meanders frighteningly slowly out of the room. As soon as he's out of sight, I leap into action. "Come on, John, help me up with the carpet." We pull at it until the square of floor is exposed; hurriedly, I start tapping on the floorboards. One of them has to be loose, _this_, this has to be what I was looking for the last time we were here. Where he kept the _really_ secret documents. And if we can – "Ah!" I hook a jemmy out of my pocket and under the floorboard that had sounded hollow when I tapped it; sure enough, with a bit of wiggling it pops free, revealing –

Nothing.

There's a hollow, but it's empty, the dust leaving one free square in the middle where something has been recently removed. We're too late.

Lestrade's voice echoes from the end of the corridor; they're coming back. "John!" I hiss, and we scramble to get the floorboard and the carpet back into position before they re-enter the room.

"Now, you tell these two what you just told me," Lestrade says to the burly young officer when they step through the door.

The other man looks sheepish. "She didn't do any harm or anything. It was just a young woman, got the wrong address. Saw I was a police officer and wanted to know what had happened, so I let her in just to see. Then she… she collapsed on that piece of carpet. She said that she needed some kind of medication, so I ran down to the chemist on the corner and got it for her, because she looked like she was in a lot of pain. When I came back she just took the meds and apologised for bothering me and left. That's all, I swear. That'll be why the carpet's crooked, she knocked it askew when she passed out. I'm really sorry, sir." He addresses the last plaintive sentence to Lestrade, who frowns sternly at him.

"Yes, well. One look at that carpet and I knew someone had been in here," Lestrade says severely. I look at John out of the corner of my eye in time to share a knowing smirk with him. "Sorry to have wasted your time, Sherlock," he adds, smiling apologetically at me.

I smile back. "Not at all, Lestrade." The DI looks at John, who shakes his head minutely; the two of them seem to have developed their own sort of language wherein Lestrade asks what kind of mood I'm in or whether he should ask me something, and John knows me well enough to tell him what to do. Things were so much more complicated without John around.

As we're leaving, the young burly officer follows us to the door. I take advantage of this to find the picture of Lady Trelawney-Hope on my phone and hold it out to him.

He reels, gaping, staring from the photo to me to John. "How… how did you…"

"Just a hunch." I wink at him cheerily, and then close the door in his face.

I feel like screaming in excitement, but I keep quiet. John looks at me as I wave my arm for a taxi. "So you've…" he starts.

"Yes."

"Right. Good. Where are we going?"

"The Trelawney-Hopes'. There are a number of things I'd like to know before we expose this properly."

The taxi stops on the other side of the road, which is only natural given the nature of our location, but it means that John and I have to run across the street to get there; the short burst of exertion leaves me panting and light-headed and I have to hold onto the roof of the taxi for a moment until the world stops tilting. John narrows his eyes at me. "Are you okay?" he asks suspiciously.

"I'm fine," I reply shortly. For a moment he looks like he's about to say something, but then he bites his tongue and keeps silent.

Lady Trelawney-Hope looks harrowed and frustrated when we knock on the door. She sighs. "Mister Holmes, I cannot –"

"Don't," I tell her. "Don't even try that. Let us in, please."

Somewhat shocked, she opens the door wide enough for us to pass through. John, predictably, gives her an apologetic smile as I take up an offensive stance in the living room.

"Mr Holmes," she reiterates. "I have already told you there is nothing more I can tell you."

"Good. I don't want to hear anything else – first, I want you to go and get the letter."

She blinks. For a moment I think she's going to pass out – really pass out, not that mockery she did at Lucas' house. John starts forward, but she recovers herself. "Mr Holmes, I would appreciate it if you would leave now," she says with an air of extreme control.

"No." We stare each other down for a moment, then she reaches for the telephone. I roll my eyes. "Lady Hilda, I'm trying to work _with_ you, here. Give me the letter yourself and I can withhold certain bits of information as to how I recovered it. If you don't, I'll have to let the story out."

Her cold blue eyes remain stubbornly narrow. "What story? What do you know? What _proof_ do you have?"

It takes a great deal of effort not to jump on the woman and wring her neck until she tells me everything. For some reason I feel strangely jumpy, and remaining still is twice as much effort as usual. I sigh. "I know how you gave the letter to Eduardo Lucas. And how you recovered it last night – very clever, by the way."

Slowly, Lady Trelawney-Hope sinks into the armchair that I sat in last time we were here. "Where is your proof?" she asks.

Another sigh. "The officer on the scene last night recognised your photograph," I tell her. John gasps; I can't help but give him a tiny smile. Bless him, he's finally catching up.

I wait a moment for the Lady to process this information. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says finally.

So be it. Some people just don't want to be helped. "Fine," I say sharply. "John, pass me my phone."

The doctor gives a long-suffering sigh. "Where is it?" he asks.

I look at him quickly. "I left it on the coffee table, didn't you pick it up?"

For a moment he just looks at me. Then he laughs. "What would you do without me?" he asks, reaching into his pocket and producing my phone.

_Waste away and die of loneliness_ is the correct answer, but I force a smile. "Probably learn rather quickly to remember my own phone," I tell him, calling Mycroft. "Mycroft? I know where the letter is. How quickly can you get to the Trelawney-Hope residence?"

The Lady almost falls out of the armchair. "Ten minutes?" I repeat clearly for her benefit. "Fine."

"Mr Holmes!" she exclaims. "Please, you can't!"

"Then tell me where it is," I insist. Pathetically, tears start to dribble down her pale cheeks. John steps forward, but I hold out my hand to keep him back. We need her desperate for this to work. "The game is up, my Lady. Give me the letter and we might be able to save it still."

With a tiny sob, she stands up and leaves the room, coming back a moment later with a blue envelope clutched in her hands. I stare at it for a moment. "Is the safe-box still here?" I ask quickly. She nods. "Go and get it. Quickly! We only have ten minutes, and you still have to explain."

So the Lady runs up the stairs. John looks at me. "What are you going to tell Mycroft?" he asks, sounding like he thinks this whole thing is a very bad idea.

I shrug. "I'll think of something." Lady Trelawney-Hope stumbles back into the room with the safe-box, a silver key dangling from her fingertips. "Open it, quickly." I shift the contents of the box around a bit – other papers and letters and two USB keys rattle around – and then slip the blue envelope near the bottom of the pile so that it isn't visible from the top. "All right. Now go and put it back – exactly as you found it."

By the time she comes back, five minutes have passed. I glance at my watch before taking a seat on the sofa; John sits down next to me. "Well then, my Lady," I say amicably. "Explain."

She swallows. "That man – Lucas – he somehow got hold of a photograph of… well, it would have ruined my marriage. I adore Robert. He wouldn't have understood. Lucas told me that he would give the photo to Robert unless I got him that letter. I don't understand politics, Mr Holmes. Lucas told me that Robert wouldn't miss the envelope, but I knew that the photo I swapped it for would have ruined us. So I swapped them. I went to Lucas' house, gave him the envelope, and he gave me the photo. Then… there was a noise in the hall, and he ripped up the carpet and hid the letter under a loose floorboard, right before this woman burst in. She was shouting something in French. When she tried to hit him I ran – I didn't find out that she killed him until the next morning."

The Lady pauses to wipe delicately at her eyes with a finger, carefully clearing the mascara stains from underneath her eyes. "That was when I saw how upset Robert was and realised what I'd done. He mentioned that he wanted to go to you for help, so I thought I would go too and give you more of the story, but you wouldn't promise me, and I still wanted to keep the photo secret from him. When I saw in the paper that they'd solved Lucas' murder, I went back to the house and got the letter back. I didn't want anyone to find it – I was going to burn it." She sniffs once, then levels her eyes at me. "That's the whole story, I swear."

I nod shortly. "That does explain everything adequately. It's all right, Lady Hilda. Your secret is safe with us."

The doorbell rings.

Lady Trelawney-Hope smiles weakly at us. "Thank you," she says quietly. Then she gets up for the door. "Robert?" her voice drifts back. "Mr Holmes was telling me that he's found your paper you were missing."

"So I hear. Hilda, you have no idea how much of a relief that is." I glance at John, and then have to look away quickly to hide my smile as Mycroft and Lord Robert Trelawney-Hope are led into the sitting-room. "Mr Holmes!" he greets enthusiastically. "You know where the letter is?"

I frown, standing up to greet them. "Did I say _know_? I have a theory, and I'd be surprised if I'm wrong. But I'm not _certain._"

"Well?" Trelawney-Hope asks eagerly. "Where do you think it is?"

I venture a half-smile. "Here."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The letter hasn't appeared on the black market. It hasn't been offered to either our government or theirs. No action whatsoever has been taken, and there's no reason to just sit on something like this. So it follows that no-one took it. I'd venture that it's still in the safe."

Lord Trelawney-Hope's jaw works furiously. "It isn't. I did check, Mr Holmes."

"I'm sure you did, my Lord. But – forgive me – it would have been rather easy to miss, if perhaps the box you said you kept it in had been shaken somehow and the letter had shifted so it wasn't on the top?"

The man's chin juts obscenely. "That's not possible," he says stubbornly. I roll my eyes.

Mycroft, too, seems to grow impatient. "The matter is easily cleared, Robert," he says calmly. "Go and fetch the box, and check."

Eyes narrowed at the two of us, Lord Trelawney-Hope leaves the room and comes back a moment later with the box, pulling a key on a gold chain out from under his shirt.

"You see?" he says when the box is open. "It's not there. A letter from the Home Secretary," he removes the offending letter, watching me as he does. I keep my face neutral. "The Treasury's report. The annual data from the Foreign Office. A list of – oh!"

I smile brightly as he lifts the envelope from the safe and holds it up wonderingly. "So," I say cheerfully, "no harm done."

"I… I don't…" he stammers. "It must have – thank you, Mr Holmes. I would never have looked in there again – to think, in my safe-box beside my bed all this time."

John and I smile. "Happens to the very best of us, my Lord," I remark wryly. "If you'll excuse us."

Mycroft gives me a look as we walk past him. "That letter has _not_ been in that box the whole time," he says, quietly so Trelawney-Hope won't hear us.

I grin. "No?" He raises an eyebrow. "I can have my secrets too, Mycroft."

"Do you fancy lunch?" John asks as we head back to the main road. "There's a nice Indian place around the corner, I went there with Mike the other day."

The thought of heavy, oily Indian takeaway after not eating for so long makes my stomach turn. "No. You get some if you like, I'm fine for a bit."

He frowns, but doesn't argue, so we end up back at Baker St without food. I feel slightly dizzy after getting out of the cab so suddenly; John puts a hand on my back to help me through the door. "Are you sure you're not sick?" he asks.

I shake my head, but that makes the dizziness worse and I stumble. The pressure of John's hand on my waist increases until he offloads me onto the sofa and _God_, that's distracting.

I've come to realise that I was being a tad ambitious when I requested that we go back to the way we were. It's not John, even though there have been a few times where I've looked at him and he's been looking at me and I know that he's thinking about what happened between us and it's electric, as though some kind of static is pulling us together like when you rub a balloon over someone's hair. But he's doing admirably. It's _me_ that can't handle it, can't stop thinking about it, wanting John's hands on me again.

I want to be able to kiss him good morning and fall asleep with his arms around me and mine around him. To listen to the sound of his breathing and his heartbeat even when we're just sitting on the sofa together. I want to be able to touch him the way he wants me to, and to have him touch me and maybe I'll get used to it, maybe there's a way we could do it that wouldn't be so overwhelming.

I vault off the sofa and am accosted by a sudden wave of nausea and lightheadedness; I sit back down abruptly and put my head between my knees. If this goes on much longer I'm going to have to eat under my own steam and admit to myself that John doesn't care about me as much as I thought he did.

Fantasies of a more intimate life with him spin crazily around my head in time with the too-loud pounding of my heartbeat in my ears. This really isn't fair. It's not fair on him if I leave him, and that's the last thing I want to do so it's not fair on me either. But I want so much more than he thinks I do, and yet I've already proven I can't give him everything he needs, so _that_ wouldn't be fair on him either.

Maybe I'm just tired and hungry and on my last nerve from the excitement of the case, but it honestly feels like the end of the world. A sort of helpless groan bubbles out of my mouth.

John hears the noise and comes into the room. "Cup of tea, Sherlock – oh, no. You're not okay."

I lift my head slowly to avoid feeling light-headed again. "I'm fine," I pass off.

He comes to sit next to me on the sofa, frowning at me. My heart twinges uncomfortably at the expression on his face: it looks horribly like disappointment. "Sherlock," he says softly.

I can almost feel tears welling up behind my eyes. I _must_ be overtired.

"Sherlock, I… I know I promised, but you…" he stops, like he's fighting himself, and then puts a hand on my shoulder. "As your doctor, and Christ, Sherlock, as your _friend_, I'm going to have to insist that you eat something. And then sleep."

I'm not sure if it's the hunger, the exhaustion, or the relief, but I pass out.


	19. After the Storm

John wakes Sherlock up ten minutes later by slapping him in the face.

The detective jerks upright with a gasp, grabbing at John's arm and squeezing until he begins to lose circulation. "What was that for?" he asks peevishly.

John smiles at him. "You're an idiot," he says by way of reply, handing him a plate of tea and toast. "Don't ever do that to me again."

After a few bites of toast Sherlock seems to recover himself enough to tuck his feet under him on the sofa and smirk in that really annoying way that John's going to stamp out of him one day. Maybe. If he didn't love it so much, in a masochistic kind of way. "It worked, didn't it?"

"How did it _work_?" John asks, trying to keep a lid on his anger. "You were trying to prove to me you could look after yourself!"

Sherlock's smirk actually _widens_. He's never been very good at reading the little tells that add up to spell _John's very angry now, I should stop talking. _"But I didn't _want_ to. I was trying to show you that I didn't really mean anything I said to you that night. Apart from the nice things, I meant most of those."

"Sherlock, you _passed out._ Couldn't you have just _told_ me you didn't mean to tell me I was too controlling?" The detective quirks an eyebrow at him. John sighs. "No, I don't suppose you could." _That would be far too much like admitting weakness._ "It's okay," he says softly, resting his hand on his friend's knee reassuringly. "I know you didn't mean it. But the fact that you said it means that it's something that bothers you, so I was still trying not to."

A thin-fingered hand covers his on Sherlock's bony knee. "I'd rather you did," he says softly. "I like knowing that you care about me."

John sighs again. "I'll _always_ care about you," he promises. "Whether I want to or not, apparently. And I'm okay with that."

Sherlock smiles, lowering his mug after a swill of tea; the sappy rom-com feel of the moment compels him to lean forwards slightly, closer to his flatmate, so close that if he focusses he can fill himself up with that rich and earthy smell that is Sherlock underneath the façade. He looks up into clear silvery eyes to find that Sherlock has leaned forwards too, and now they're close enough to kiss, only –

He stands up brusquely, giving the detective's knee a final pat. They _can't_ do this. "Finish your tea, then get some sleep. Mycroft wants us back at Whitehall tomorrow – they probably want to thank you."

"Us," Sherlock says quietly, not meeting his eyes, his cheeks flushed gently pink. "I couldn't have done any of it without you."

John grinned, shrugging. "I hardly did anything on this one," he says offhandedly, and wanders off to his bedroom.

* * *

><p>To John's surprise, the room they're led to in Downing Street is full of people in suits idly conversing with each other over tea, coffee, and a delightful-looking selection of biscuits. Sherlock looks as though he can't think of anything he'd like <em>less<em> than to be paraded through the room, so John looks around until he sees Mycroft standing in a corner looking rather forcibly polite, and makes a beeline for him.

"Mycroft," he says in a falsely cheerful manner. "What's happening here?"

The British Government straightens his tie and smiles ruefully. "Friday morning tea," he explains. "It happens every week. I usually decline to put in an appearance, but this morning Lord Trelawney-Hope insisted that we invite the two of you along, and so it would have been rude of me not to turn up."

John nods in a somewhat scathing way that makes the corners of Sherlock's mouth turn up slightly. "Right, well, if we could –"

"Mister Holmes!" the shout comes from behind them, and Sherlock flinches slightly as he sees Trelawney-Hope approach them, arranging his face into an almost painful-looking smile.

"Lord Trelawney-Hope." He takes the proffered hand reluctantly, shaking it with his own wrist limp. "I trust you slept more soundly last night?"

The politician chuckles. "Most certainly, Mister Holmes, all thanks to you. Can I get you a cup of tea?"

It takes almost half an hour of tea, biscuits and idle conversation about things John doesn't understand – and an ornamental letter-opener, which Sherlock turns his nose up at on the pretext that he operates through email – before Trelawney-Hope, Mycroft and the few other people who wanted to meet _The Great Sherlock Holmes_ drift away and the detective's fingers start to loosen their death-grip on John's leg beneath the table. Sherlock's exhale is blatantly loud in the new bubble of quiet between them. "How much longer do we have to stay before we can leave politely?" the detective asks.

Surprised that he actually cares, John takes pity on him. "Only another ten minutes or so," he replies. Their corner of the room is quiet; the gathering seems to be winding down as the British Government grinds back into operation. John looks around to see Sherlock pressing his index and middle fingers against his temple, eyes closed. He grimaces. "You okay?"

Sherlock doesn't look up. "No," he says shortly, his lips tight. "My head is about to explode."

Biting his lip in sympathy, John reaches forward and draws the detective's hand away from his head. "Come here," he says gently. It's not the first time Sherlock's complained of a headache, and he supposes he shouldn't be surprised: a head the size of his flatmate's must suffer from gargantuan aches. "You're probably dehydrated," he says, brushing his own fingers against Sherlock's forehead. "How much have you had to drink today?"

The detective closes his eyes again as John's fingers touch him, exhaling gently. "Not much," he admits, steering his chair closer to his flatmate's. "John, could you…"

"Of course," John finishes. "And I'll go find Mycroft and excuse us, too. You just breathe." To his surprise, John has to bite his cheek before some kind of pet name slips out of his mouth as well.

He comes back with water and a few ibuprofen he'd found in a first-aid kit in the kitchenette to find that his friend has rested his head on the table, looking thoroughly ill. John wonders how hard it had been for him to hold his discomfort in through the rest of the morning. He rouses him by stroking his curls tenderly back from his face. Sherlock groans. "Here," John whispers, shifting the hand traversing through dark curls to rub gently at his temple. "Take these."

Sherlock lifts a hand to accept the pills and the glass, so John goes to remove his hand from the detective's hair; a spidery-fingered hand shoots up to keep it there. "Please," Sherlock murmurs. "Please don't stop."

So John settles in with both hands wrist-deep in Sherlock's hair, gently circling his middle fingers around pressure points. Slowly, he feels the lanky detective's body start to deflate and relax as John's fingers work their way down to the nape of his neck. After a while, the soft sighs escalate into gentle moans. John takes a step back to hide the fact that his groin is showing an unhealthy interest in the noises his flatmate is making.

After about ten minutes John stills his fingers and moves around until their faces are level. "Better?" he whispers gently.

Sherlock opens his eyes slowly, his pupils huge. John frowns and wonders if he should check for concussion, but the detective smiles. "Thank you."

Then he leans forward and gently presses their lips together.

John freezes. The kiss only lasts for a moment but it sends a wave of something icy crashing down his spine, lighting his whole body like the Vegas strip before Sherlock pulls away, still smiling softly.

He clears his throat. And then the detective seems to realise what he's done, his eyes widening in horror; John can't say why exactly, but to stop him from panicking he surges forward and reconnects their mouths.

The kiss is frantic, their hands reaching for each other as though each is afraid the other will let him go, tongues and teeth and fingertips a desperate mess as John tries to stop his heart from climbing out of his throat. They'd promised this wouldn't happen. And what does it say about them that it _is_ happening, even after last time? Surely, _surely_ it means Sherlock still wants him?

John pries his lips away from his flatmate's and steps back, putting a fair amount of distance between them so he can't jump the younger man again. "Sherlock," he pants. "We can't do this."

Sherlock blinks a few times as though dazed, then shakes his head. "No. No, of course not." He drains the last of the glass of water and hooks his jacket off the back of the chair. "I'm sorry, John."

"I'll go tell Mycroft we're leaving." John picks up his phone as he turns to find Sherlock's brother, fighting back the urge to scream in frustration and despair. They can't go on like this.

"Greg?" he says into the phone when the other man picks up. "Can we meet somewhere? I think I'll take you up on your pint and a pizza offer."

By the time John gets there the DI has already ordered and received two beers and holed himself up in a booth at the back of the pub. He smiles gratefully at his friend as Lestrade slides a Budweiser Classic across the table to him.

"So," the older man says lightly. "What's he done this time?"

John sighs. "I'm not even sure that it's _him_," he says heavily. "Well, I mean… it's just as much _me_. We…"

Lestrade leans forward over the table. "Yeah? You can tell me."

"D'you remember when I told you – after that case with the tobacco ash – that I was going to…"

"_Steal his heart_?" Lestrade ventures, grinning. "Yeah."

John grimaces. "Well. He heard that. I think he took it a little bit too literally." The DI raises a sceptical eyebrow and so John tells him everything, from Brighton Beach to the argument when they got home to the completely failed attempt at intimacy, to Sherlock wanting to sleep with him to refusing to make him eat until he passed out to this morning at Mycroft's thank-you ceremony. Lestrade's dark eyes leak sympathy as he listens, tutting and sighing every now and then in all the right places. "I just have no idea what to do," he finishes quietly. "Every time I think maybe we're settling out again, getting back to normal, something happens and one of us freaks out and moves away again."

The DI pulls his mouth into a lopsided grimace. "Maybe you should get away from him for a bit. Come and stay with me for a few nights and just give both of you a bit of time to think about what you want, what you mean to each other."

"I know what I want," John counters. "And I know a part of him wants it too, but he's convinced himself that he can't have it." He sighs. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I could manage having a relationship with him the way he wants, you know, romantic but not sexual. Then he _looks_ at me and I… I don't even know that that _is_ what he wants. I don't think _he_ knows."

John drains the last of his Budweiser and sighs again. Lestrade waves the bartender for another. "So maybe some time apart would do him good," he ventures.

"Maybe," John agrees. "I suggested that the morning after we… you know. But he said he didn't want me to go." He almost smiles at the memory, Sherlock clutching his back and so quickly shooting down the suggestion that he leave for a while. "I'll bring it up again. But I'll stay there tonight. Have to make sure he eats properly after yesterday."

Lestrade chuckles at that. "He'd never survive without you. And he knows it. He does love you, John, he's just… well, Sherlock. He likes to pretend he doesn't have emotions. I've known him for almost seven years now and the only thing I learned about him before you turned up was that he won't ask for help; he'll wait until you can't possibly not notice that he needs it."

John nods. "Sounds like Sherlock." He sighs. "Thanks, Greg. Sorry to lump you with all of this."

The DI shrugs. "No problem. Spare bedroom's always yours if you need it, mate."

He leaves the pub a little over an hour and two further beers later with a slight wobble in his walk. He's not _drunk_, not unpleasantly so: just extra aware of the way his body is functioning. Which is not very well, apparently: fine motor control's always the first thing to go, especially when he's stressed. But that's fine.

Sherlock is lying on the sofa in his pyjamas in the dark when he gets there, fingertips steepled under his chin. "Evening, Sherlock," John gets out, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to stand on one foot in order to remove his shoe. The detective grunts in response. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking," Sherlock responds as though it should be obvious. Which it should be, really, John remembers. Sherlock does that a lot.

"About what? There isn't a case. Is your head still bothering you?"

The detective rolls his eyes. "Just things, John, it's fine. You're drunk."

"Good deduction," John congratulates. Then he remembers that he isn't. "No, I'm not," he objects loudly. "Not really. I only had two. Three. Four, at most. I'm just tired, mostly. I'm off to bed."

Sherlock lifts an eyebrow incredulously. "If you say so."

In the hallway to the stairs, John looks back. "I think I might go and stay with Lestrade for a night or two," he mentions. "Just so we can… sort out what we want from this. You know." He waits a few seconds for Sherlock to reply: he doesn't. John nods. "Okay. Well. When you're finished thinking, make sure you find yourself a bed, all right? You don't want to pass out again."

Sherlock makes a bored nod and waves an assenting hand in John's direction. John nods again. "Okay. Goodnight."

The responding, "Goodnight, John," is so quiet he almost doesn't hear it.

He's been asleep for a grand total of five minutes when something heavy lands on his chest.

Upon further inspection he discovers that the something happens to be a consulting detective: when it realises that John is conscious – and no longer attempting to perform some kind of sleepy military manoeuvre to remove it – said consulting detective smiles. John blinks.

"You're sitting on me," he states. Sherlock raises the eyebrow that has written on it, _you don't say_. "Sherlock! I'd only just got to sleep!"

Further protests are cut off when John realises that the consulting detective, the one sitting on his chest, has extended a hand to cover his mouth as well. A moment later, it speaks.

"I want to try again," it says.

John frowns. "Try what again? The running leap from the door to the bed? You're welcome to try anytime I'm not _in_ the bed, _asleep_."

Sherlock rolls his eyes and actually _rocks_ his hips against John's chest. "Not that, don't be an idiot. _This_. Us. _In _the bed. Together. I want to try again."

And suddenly John's stone-cold sober. Only not stone-cold at all; Sherlock's words send a flush of heat through him. He tries to sit up, only Sherlock's still in the way. "I've been thinking about it, _all the time_. I know I can do it this time. If you still want to." The detective bites his lip and looks down at John with such childlike insecurity that his heart shrinks and thumps between Sherlock's thighs.

"But… how do you know you can handle it? Sherlock, I can't do this again and have you bail on me," he says, unable to quite stop his hands from sliding up Sherlock's thighs and holding on to them, a subconscious gesture of affection and reassurance. He _has_ to make some kind of verbal protest, because if what happened last time happens again it will break his battered heart, but really he knows it's already lost.

Sherlock smiles and leans forward. "Because I know I _can't_ handle _not_ having it," he says. "I didn't know that last time. John, I haven't stopped thinking about you, about what we did. I _know_ I can do it this time."

He narrows his eyes suspiciously, but he can't help warmth blooming in the pit of his stomach. He _knew_, after this morning at Mycroft's stupid little morning tea, he _knew. _"Are you sure you're not just feeling like this because of what happened this morning?"

The detective rolls his eyes. "Of _course_ not, John! This morning happened because I feel like this."

John tries to sigh resignedly, but he can't help the hint of ecstatic smile spreading over his face. "All right," he says, squeezing the detective's thighs. "But not right now. We'll try again in the morning, when we're all energized and I'm not exhausted and tipsy. Now get into bed."

He manoeuvres the blankets up, holding a space for his friend which Sherlock is quick to take, carefully climbing off his chest and into bed. When he's settled down, the detective leans forward and places a gentle, chaste kiss on his lips. "I love you, John," he says seriously, wrapping his arms around him and sighing.

John snorts Sherlock's curls away from his nose and kisses the top of his head, not quite able to believe it. "I love you, too."

And then, softly so he's fairly sure the detective can't hear, "_Gotcha_."

_fin_


	20. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

The door was unlocked, and nobody answered when he knocked, so he opened the door and walked in.

And was blown straight out again by the ear-shatteringly loud chorus of a clearly inexperienced young woman belting out a distressingly upbeat version of Adele's _Someone Like You_.

It was unexpected, perhaps, especially given the place of origin, but he was not a man to be swayed by a little discomfort like that, and so Detective Inspector Lestrade squared his shoulders, held his breath, and marched straight in again.

This time he was expecting _The X-Factor_ with the volume on the telly at maximum, but it still took him a moment to grit his teeth, identify that the sound was coming from the downstairs flat, and force his way through the soundwaves to the door to try and address the tiny landlady.

It took a few moments before he got close enough for her to realise that he was standing behind her; when she finally noticed her entire body jolted in shock and her lips moved in a sound that might have been _oh! Inspector!_ had he been able to hear it.

"Sorry, Mrs Hudson," he shouted over the television. "I didn't mean to scare you – I was just wondering if you could turn that down!"

The smaller woman shrugged and shook her head to indicate that she hadn't heard; Lestrade looked around until he caught sight of the remote on the arm of the settee. He picked it up and reached for the volume button; he thought he might have heard a quick shout of _no!_ before he'd pressed the button and dialled the television back to a more manageable level that didn't make him want to scratch his eardrums out with his fingernails.

He turned back to Mrs Hudson. "That's better," he ventured cheerfully.

She looked downcast. "Well, you see, Inspector," she said slowly, "the boys upstairs –"

And then he heard it. _"Ooh," _someone with a deep, lazy baritone rumble of a voice groaned through the floorboards. "_Ooh, John – that – you – oh!_"

Mrs Hudson nodded perfunctorily as his fingers feverishly hit the volume button again, bringing it up until it cloaked the unmistakeable grunts and groans from upstairs. Lestrade grimaced. "Does this happen often?" he shouted. The landlady shook her head again, mouthing _pardon?_ and waving her hands aimlessly. Lestrade frowned again.

He pulled his standard-issue notepad out of his back pocket – God knew why he still carried it around but it did come in handy every now and then – and repeated the message on that. The landlady sat down at her table to scribble a reply.

_This is the first time I've ever heard them. I think it's the first time it's happened. I'll give them today as a grace period and then talk to them tomorrow if it carries on._

Lestrade's always had a sense for how much their landlady does for them, but this – _The X-Factor_ slowly and brutally drilling holes in her brain _all day_ just so her tenants can have loud just-got-together sex – is beyond what he had imagined. Not that he had imagined that it might be necessary, of course. It wasn't as if he had given the issue too much thought.

_Mrs Hudson, you're a saint,_ he wrote back. She beamed. _I just wanted to give them a wrap-up of the case they were on yesterday. I'll come back tomorrow._

The landlady shrugged and shook her head; _they should be done soon. Stay and have a drink._

Lestrade smiled at her, his stomach twinging in pity. _We could go to the café next door,_ he suggested. _Get you out of here for a bit._ She smiled kindly back at him and shrugged.

They sat there deliberating for a moment; Simon Cowell finally gave up on the unfortunate candidate and stopped the music on the telly. In the few second's relative silence in the flat, they were handed their answer in an actual _scream_ from upstairs.

"_Oh! Oh, JOOHN!"_

Mrs Hudson waited a moment, her head tilted to one side as she listened for further noise. When it was not forthcoming, she reached over and switched off the television. Lestrade struggled not to laugh as he watched her. So, John and Sherlock had finally got it together. He wondered what John had said to make that happen.

The older woman sighed happily. "I am glad they finally opened their eyes," she remarked. "They did dance around each other something awful."

He chuckled. "I can't help but wonder what a regular sex life will do to Sherlock, though," he said wryly. "It _could_ make him absolutely insufferable."

She smiled fondly at him. "Give them ten minutes to clean themselves up and then you can go and knock on their door," she said, standing up briskly as though she had just suggested care of a wound he had sustained rather than how to deal with her post-coital tenants. "Cup of tea, Inspector?"

Lestrade laughed, deliberated for a moment, and then nodded. It was worth ten minutes' wasted time just to see what a post-coital Sherlock would be like.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson."

* * *

><p><em>The End<em>

* * *

><p><strong><em>A<em>/N:** I can't believe it's finally over!Everyone who has reviewed, favourited, added to a collection or alerted this story has made me hugely happy and made a considerable difference to how and when this story ended. I love you all.

Being me I do have another project lined up to replace this one: it's called _Fantasie_ and was written for the prompt, _five ways Sherlock could have let John know about his feelings for him, and the one way he actually did_. It's smutty, so if that's not your cup of tea I don't recommend it, but for sheer Johnlock fluffiness you should look out for it.

BUT having said that, I intend to participate in NaNoWriMo, so I'm going to be taking a hiatus for the month of November for that.

Extra big thanks must go to **meredithriddle, SuspiciousFlower, Statistiques, IdrisLady, minlin, Captain Betty, Zarra Rous, Lawliet's Angel, Pilikia18, Theodora Helena Miller, saysesydo, key-conductor, forgetmenotjimmy, Rairakku1234, Hikari Kame, Sherlock'sScarf, OrangeSpiral, Artemis Fortune**, **Ju Lara, manuwei, freya7040, insertwittynicknamehere, , HopeCoppice, I'llbeyourPatronus **(sorry, love)**, Mirus Infidus, power0girl, MojoFlower, theonewhodoesn'tquitefitin, lonewolfe001, Meghan1313, Parodys, emmish, Rebecca Cumberbatch, I Dont Know What Im Doing, thelightfantastique, Ertal77, Estefani1509, Johnlock-lover, **and **DuShuZhi **for their constant and beautiful encouragement.

And **thebookworm214, Mirith Griffin, Artemis Fortune** and **CaskettFanGirl**, who all deserve extra-special love and Johnlock kisses for being super-amazing specimens of womankind. This story has been an adventure; thanks very much for sharing it with me.

-for you!


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